The Pointer Sisters: Breakout

Some of you may not remember this, but for a time in 1985 there were two songs with only the title "Jump" in common in heavy rotation. There was the one by Van Halen of course, but then there was another quite different group that was at the peak of their success: The Pointer Sisters. I loved their album Breakout, I had in on vinyl, and it was in heavy rotation on my record player.

But aside from "Jump," this album will live forever in my memory for two reasons. First, because the song "Baby Come and Get It" contained the line, "I think I took a bubble bath." Oh, how my friend Liz and I would howl at this line. But for me and my need to overanalyze everything, it was deeper than that. The song was sexy, and as a nine year old I was struggling to make sense of the sexual imagery that bombarded my silly little head. I thought the line must be some sort of innuendo, like maybe the singer was referring to contraceptive foam and her inability to remember for certain whether she had put it in? Otherwise, how could you not know whether or not you had taken an actual bubble bath? It plagues me to this day.

Then in about 1996-97, I had forgotten about Breakout when I went to Kroger one night and "Neutron Dance" was playing on the store music. My girlfriend and I were walking perpendicular to the main aisles in the store, sort of to the beat of this great song, as you do. I happened to look to my left down an aisle when the song got to the first set of "woo hoo" (they say this four times) and there were two people with their backs to us in the aisle, just burning doing the neutron dance. And for the next three aisles, and the next three woo hoos, we saw three more couples dancing to the song. All of them were unaware of us and of each other. It was the single most hilarious grocery shopping experience of my life.

A song that makes that many people have a simultaneous dancing experience in Kroger deserves a second listen. So if you came from the 80s, or are just a nostalgia fan, Breakout is a great pop dance record you really should download. And, don't forget to bathe before a date.