Speaker 1: Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversial list. I'm
Speaker 1: Britney Spanis.
Speaker 2: And I'm Rob Sheffield. We're here to shed light on
Speaker 2: the greatest songs ever made and discover what makes them
Speaker 2: so great.
Speaker 1: Today we're talking about Believe by Share, a song that
Speaker 1: is actually perfect.
Speaker 2: The whole story, the whole greatness, the whole legacy of
Speaker 2: the madness pop music. One perfect song.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 4: So.
Speaker 1: This song made its debut on the twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: list at three thirty seven, and on previous list, SHARE's
Speaker 1: only entry was with Sunny for I Got You Babe.
Speaker 1: It ranked a number four forty four on the two
Speaker 1: thousand and four list, but actually did not make the
Speaker 1: new list, but Believe did. And I think it's a
Speaker 1: part of a grand story of Share and kind of
Speaker 1: the mini ups and downs that she's had that have
Speaker 1: led to kind of this newfound and very very appropriate
Speaker 1: sort of appreciation for her solo career that's happened over
Speaker 1: I think like the last decade really of the kind
Speaker 1: of Share.
Speaker 2: I have to say, Brittany and Believe are a cosmic pair.
Speaker 2: I think SHARE's Belief is arguably the most Britney song
Speaker 2: of all time. Yeah, just the esthetic, the legacy, everything
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Do you remember where you were when you first
Speaker 3: heard Believe?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Yes, it was when it came out, heard it
Speaker 2: on the radio. The synthiness of the chorus, which we
Speaker 2: will talk about, and the vocal and just that aspect
Speaker 2: of the production was so new and exciting. But also
Speaker 2: this was share singing, an intense share song about Sharre's life.
Speaker 2: There were lots of those in the nineties, so many
Speaker 2: of them. Yeah, and yet Believe seemed to be even
Speaker 2: by her standards, on a whole other level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I very distinctly remember it was nineteen eighty nine
Speaker 1: or two thousand when I first heard the song, and
Speaker 1: it was after sort of again, this beginning of the
Speaker 1: bubblegum pop era that was overtaking the world and my
Speaker 1: world specifically. But I very distinctly remember going over to
Speaker 1: a friend's house and her mom let us watch Spice World.
Speaker 1: So we watch Spice World, but she said we can
Speaker 1: only watch Spice Rol if she put something on after,
Speaker 1: and she put on a share concert film from one
Speaker 1: of her Vega shows, I Believe, and she was like
Speaker 1: watch this pay attention to her wigs, and that line
Speaker 1: changed my life. So that was my origin story of
Speaker 1: Share was pay attention to her wigs, and I did.
Speaker 1: I listened very carefully, and those wigs changed everything.
Speaker 2: Wow, wherever you are right now, I want to thank
Speaker 2: you for saying those words to a young Britney Spanish.
Speaker 2: How much you changed the world. Since then, the whole
Speaker 2: world has been paying attention to Brittany, paying attention to
Speaker 2: this way.
Speaker 1: So Share, I mean, there's so much that leads up
Speaker 1: to Believe, and I feel like we really need to
Speaker 1: get into the decades that built up to this, because
Speaker 1: it was such a big deal for Share at fifty
Speaker 1: two to release the song Believe and to have it
Speaker 1: become the biggest song of her career, and there was
Speaker 1: so much kind of you know, big moments and then
Speaker 1: like big flops and then kind of disappearances and then
Speaker 1: other things. So I feel like we need to really
Speaker 1: really get into it. Share, of course, gets her start
Speaker 1: in the sixties. She meets Sonny Bono. She's sixteen, he's
Speaker 1: thirty two. He's working at phil Specter and they start
Speaker 1: releasing music. A couple of years later, they get married, it's,
Speaker 1: you know, not a great sort of age gap situation
Speaker 1: that's happening then. But anyway, they get married when she's eighteen,
Speaker 1: they start releasing music and they're pretty successful. Immediately they
Speaker 1: have I Got You Babe, the beat goes on. The
Speaker 1: songs are huge, huge sixties pop records, and of course
Speaker 1: Share is starting her solo career.
Speaker 3: At the time too.
Speaker 1: She releases Bang Bang and you know, everything's real, real
Speaker 1: groovy in the Sonny and Chair world. But then the
Speaker 1: late sixties hit and they kind of fall off. You know,
Speaker 1: they kind of aren't They're a little square to people.
Speaker 1: What was your kind of remembering of the Sonny and
Speaker 1: Share songs? Were they really really uncool when you were
Speaker 1: when you were a little kid, or were they kind
Speaker 1: of always kind of part of public consciousness?
Speaker 2: They were always there, They were on TV? Is the
Speaker 2: thing like that? It was a huge thing for them
Speaker 2: to be hosting a music variety show where other people
Speaker 2: would come and do their music. So it wasn't even
Speaker 2: that you loved Sonny and Share, although you did. They
Speaker 2: were so funny on their show. They were a comedy duo,
Speaker 2: but also who was going to show up that week
Speaker 2: and do songs, who was going to do their hits.
Speaker 2: There was a bit of all pop music in their show,
Speaker 2: so it's almost like they were DJs as well as
Speaker 2: performers in their own right, because somebody was going to
Speaker 2: be on Sonny and Share Sunday night and they were
Speaker 2: going to be doing their hits. So it was a
Speaker 2: sort of weekly education in music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course that Variety show is such a
Speaker 1: big part of bringing them back in the seventies and
Speaker 1: making them popular again after their music kind of kind
Speaker 1: of lost its touch on the charts. And also Share
Speaker 1: solo career was really panned at this time, even though
Speaker 1: some great albums were happening at that time. Of course,
Speaker 1: her Jackson Highway album, which is all of her kind
Speaker 1: of country and rock covers. I just want to give
Speaker 1: a shout out to that because it's a very good
Speaker 1: album and critics panned it, but I thought it was great.
Speaker 2: Would you say that it has one of the all
Speaker 2: time greatest versions of a Bob Dylan song?
Speaker 3: I sure would.
Speaker 2: I would agree with you. I would say that tonight
Speaker 2: I'll be staying here with you.
Speaker 5: Yeah version.
Speaker 3: Yeah, outsong and outsold. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The Bob Dylan Share Connection itself would be like three
Speaker 2: held episodes. But it's also whild that Share was the
Speaker 2: ultimate pop star in the seventies just because she would
Speaker 2: do a little bit of everything. She would steal from everything. Also,
Speaker 2: she was on TV and everybody knew her and she
Speaker 2: had wide open taste. Everybody knows now the astounding performance
Speaker 2: where David Bowie was a guest on The Share Show
Speaker 2: and they did a medley of pop songs from the
Speaker 2: fifties sixty seventies. They did this the most insane medley
Speaker 2: of songs. It could only have been Bowie and Share. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's one of the freakiest things ever aired on network TV.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I feel like, kind of looking back
Speaker 1: on seventy Share is such a perfect kind of example
Speaker 1: of how many ups and downs she went into her career,
Speaker 1: because it's like the music was kind of that a down,
Speaker 1: but then the variety shows what Sonny brings it up,
Speaker 1: and their divorce kind of brings it up to because
Speaker 1: they were the first divorced couple on TV to get
Speaker 1: which is like such an insane kind of record type
Speaker 1: of thing to have under your belt. But then without
Speaker 1: their marriage, without the show, another kind of dip in
Speaker 1: the Share career and then of course getting her back
Speaker 1: on TV. She's married to Greg Alman now she does
Speaker 1: her Share show. She's also beyond of course just the
Speaker 1: Bowie duet, which is like one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1: There's the West Side Story where she does every character
Speaker 1: in West Side Story, which is like the most wonderful thing.
Speaker 1: She also is very, very integral and helping bring Tina
Speaker 1: Turner back. There's so many parallels between their careers and
Speaker 1: kind of having the husband wife duo and sort of
Speaker 1: the kind of trying to get the solo careers off
Speaker 1: the ground in the seventies after divorces. But I've always
Speaker 1: really loved kind of their connection that they had, but
Speaker 1: especially share bringing Tina on to the Share show so
Speaker 1: much and kind of sharing the wealth of this kind
Speaker 1: of revival that she was seeing post divorce and able
Speaker 1: to see for her solo career. And of course disco
Speaker 1: is a big part of it too. She has her
Speaker 1: kind of her disco revival. She fits right in with
Speaker 1: that entire scene, and then she wants to go rock again.
Speaker 1: She starts a band called Black Roses, right Pete Black Roses,
Speaker 1: But that doesn't really pan out. People don't really get
Speaker 1: black roses or the fact that Scher is a rock singer.
Speaker 2: Now, I'm believable you actually you moved very quickly over
Speaker 2: her marriage to Greg Ohman.
Speaker 3: In fact, I have a lot to say about it.
Speaker 2: It feels almost like it might be implying that the
Speaker 2: marriage did not even last very long.
Speaker 1: The marriage did not last very long. But okay, did
Speaker 1: you see the show, The Share Show on Broadway?
Speaker 2: Yes? I did. Okay, so Brittany, we will talk about
Speaker 2: you and this probably music.
Speaker 1: I cried several times during the musical. But my two
Speaker 1: favorite things kind of happen around the same era of Share,
Speaker 1: which is one the reason why she divorces Sonny is
Speaker 1: because she has a conversation with Lucille Ball in the
Speaker 1: show where it's like Lucille Ball is the one who's
Speaker 1: telling her to divorce Sonny, and I really love that
Speaker 1: being added in. There's no record of that actually ever
Speaker 1: happening or being the reason why Sonny and Sher get
Speaker 1: but it's a really great moment in the musical where
Speaker 1: an actress just shows up and plays Lucy Oball, who
Speaker 1: actually was friends with SHARE's mom at some point because
Speaker 1: of her mom being an actress. But I love that
Speaker 1: there's no record of this being a reason why Shared
Speaker 1: Divorce is Sonny. But also the great just like Jesse
Speaker 1: James duet that fictional Share and Greg Allman do in
Speaker 1: the show is very important to me because it's so good.
Speaker 3: Incredible couple, incredible couple.
Speaker 2: I feel like you're going out of your way not
Speaker 2: to mention any music that they happen to make together.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not my favorite in the I'll say
Speaker 1: I love the fictional duet of them singing just like
Speaker 1: Jesse James.
Speaker 2: There is an actual album and it is called All
Speaker 2: Men and Women. That is the name of their duo.
Speaker 2: This alone, I think, calls for a Share museum to
Speaker 2: the hard Way, but by the due of All Men
Speaker 2: and Woman is in itself legendary.
Speaker 1: And an rip to that couple. Really just a great
Speaker 1: rock pop couple in history.
Speaker 3: Though.
Speaker 2: Should we have a moment of silence for every day
Speaker 2: the marriage lasted before the first time Share filed for.
Speaker 1: Divorce, Yeah, exactly nine moments.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, they got it full nine days, beautiful nine days.
Speaker 1: They got married three days after her divorce was Sonny
Speaker 1: was finalized.
Speaker 3: But then they got back together. They tried it again
Speaker 3: three years they had a kid.
Speaker 2: Well, like, yeah, it's just kind of beautiful. I always
Speaker 2: love the way Greg Almond describes like their connection in
Speaker 2: his amazing memoir Yeah, it's like very much worth reading
Speaker 2: My Cross to Bear. But yeah, I love how he
Speaker 2: shows up to pick up Share in a you a
Speaker 2: long black limousine. Yeah, she thinks it's really cool. And
Speaker 2: she sees him, She's like, fuck you, I'm not getting
Speaker 2: in that funeral car. And she's like, we're taking my car,
Speaker 2: We're taking my Mercedes's absolutely beautiful, like this, this is
Speaker 2: absolutely this is the way a true great rock and
Speaker 2: roll love story should begin. Right.
Speaker 1: It was sort of a again like the Share Show's
Speaker 1: doing well, weird marriage, music career kind of still fighting
Speaker 1: that way of She's a very experimental person. She's someone
Speaker 1: who likes trying out new things. She's never stopped doing that.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, But the essence of Sharing the seventies is, like
Speaker 2: you said, she would do anything. She had noted. There
Speaker 2: was no concept in her mind of this is a
Speaker 2: genre that maybe is not for me. Maybe it calls
Speaker 2: for some expertise that I don't have. I shouldn't make
Speaker 2: a southern rock album. I shouldn't make a hard rock
Speaker 2: I shouldn't make a glam rock record. I shouldn't make
Speaker 2: a disco album. I shouldn't do a medley of the
Speaker 2: entire musical of West Side Story with me being every character.
Speaker 2: There's absolutely no voice in Shar's head saying like you
Speaker 2: should you know, maybe like sit this one out. She
Speaker 2: is part of every story in pop music.
Speaker 1: And the thing is she was proven right by history
Speaker 1: that she could do everything. I feel like that's the
Speaker 1: thing too, is like so much of that stuff has
Speaker 1: had new lives, like breathe into it, where so many
Speaker 1: people have looked back and been like, huh, Shar's voice
Speaker 1: actually sounds great on like a glam rock record. Shar's
Speaker 1: voice actually sounds really great singing like southern rock.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Her vocal range is really remarkable and really incredible, and
Speaker 1: she just has the personality to pull off a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff like the West Side Story video. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's something that I feel like people rediscover and discover
Speaker 1: for the first time every year and are kind of
Speaker 1: blown away by how just kind of weird and insane
Speaker 1: it is to have chosen to do that. And for
Speaker 1: anyone who have thought to do that in the first place,
Speaker 1: but also the fact that it's kind of really fun
Speaker 1: to watch, Like if I watch that live, I would
Speaker 1: also be talking about it for the rest of my life, you.
Speaker 5: Know, absolutely.
Speaker 2: And this is just the beginning of the Share story. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that she was.
Speaker 3: She was the eighties crazy.
Speaker 2: That was a crazy Share decade.
Speaker 1: This was again very the foresight to try everything, to
Speaker 1: dip a few hands and toes into as many things
Speaker 1: as possible is something that Share again has been proven
Speaker 1: extremely right by history, and she decides to try acting.
Speaker 1: She auditions for some theater roles, some film roles, and
Speaker 1: this ends up being one of the smartest moves she's
Speaker 1: ever made, because she ends up winning an Oscar for Moonstruck.
Speaker 1: Her film career, of course, starts to take off at
Speaker 1: this point and ends up again being another revival for Share.
Speaker 1: When the music the Black Roses Band doesn't really take
Speaker 1: off the way she's hoping, When the music isn't really
Speaker 1: kind of hitting the way it had been just a
Speaker 1: few years prior, she ends up finding a home in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: which makes so much sense for her because her personality
Speaker 1: the Variety shows, her kind of performances on those shows
Speaker 1: were such a big part of bringing her back into
Speaker 1: the public sphere.
Speaker 2: Yes, and it has to be stressed she did it
Speaker 2: the hard way. She did not waltz into vehicles for
Speaker 2: her as a famous person. Her first big film role
Speaker 2: was Silkwood, a very serious film. She is in a
Speaker 2: supporting part. She is not playing a Share type of role.
Speaker 2: It's a very complicated, very serious drama, very political drama.
Speaker 2: Share is playing a minor character, and she's a lesbian character.
Speaker 2: At a time when this was considered an absolute career
Speaker 2: killer for a high profile actress or any actress to do,
Speaker 2: and we could make a long list of actress in
Speaker 2: the eighties would not play roles like this specifically because
Speaker 2: of that. It cannot be stressed. What a bold, unprecedented,
Speaker 2: uncalled for, unexpected and really unremarked upon at the time
Speaker 2: move this was for her, so typical of her seriousness,
Speaker 2: so typical of her ambition.
Speaker 1: The number of roles she's done, the number of iconic
Speaker 1: films she's really attached her name to and made iconic
Speaker 1: by how incredible her acting is. You know, she was
Speaker 1: playing alongside actors that we consider to be the best
Speaker 1: of all time, like someone like Meryl Streep is someone
Speaker 1: that we can She's one of the most awarded actresses
Speaker 1: in history. I mean, Share is holding her own with
Speaker 1: Meryl Streep in that film. She is remarkable in it.
Speaker 2: It was so astounding when she was in Mask in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four and she is a biker mom. It's
Speaker 2: a mask, but it was not what people are expecting
Speaker 2: a Share type of movie role to be. She is
Speaker 2: a very unglamorous, very tough, very gritty, very unsaintly working
Speaker 2: class biker mom of a character who she's very protective of.
Speaker 2: It was a very very different type.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean in peak Share, of course, she's
Speaker 1: doing these roles where she is very much dressing herself
Speaker 1: down and she is like deglamming. She is playing an
Speaker 1: every woman in a lot of these roles and then
Speaker 1: has like the biggest moment in her pop career at
Speaker 1: that time. Yet with if I could turn back time,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is like the peak kind of glam Share.
Speaker 1: She's finding sort of her footing in the eighties, takes
Speaker 1: over the eighties in a lot of ways at this point,
Speaker 1: and is able to balance these two things at once.
Speaker 1: This really remarkable Hollywood career where she's playing against what
Speaker 1: people thought was her type, and also then being the
Speaker 1: pop star she always has been that also is really
Speaker 1: leaning into the rock vocalist that she really wanted to be,
Speaker 1: that she was really toying with in the seventies that
Speaker 1: kind of was not super accepted when she wasn't you know.
Speaker 1: It was really kind of her her disco and sort
Speaker 1: of radio pop moments that were more acceptable to people.
Speaker 1: But this was her being able to be like a
Speaker 1: little bit of a rock star, total pop star, and
Speaker 1: you know, in a tiny onesie on like was it
Speaker 1: air Force or whatever kind of military base, and like
Speaker 1: the battleship.
Speaker 2: She's got the entire navy on this. She has turned
Speaker 2: the entire US Navy into an entire battleship fleet of
Speaker 2: her gay boyfriends. This is the proudest moment, Like she
Speaker 2: is absolutely like, Hi, I'm sure I'm going to spend
Speaker 2: this video wearing an outfit that is so obscene that
Speaker 2: it would not have been considered possible to air on
Speaker 2: MTV a couple years later, except at this point it
Speaker 2: was so yeah out there fashion wise that they thought like, oh,
Speaker 2: like we basically have shared just basically naked from the
Speaker 2: waist down having sex with all these battleships, and you know,
Speaker 2: the entire navy is like cheering her on and dancing
Speaker 2: and this is like kind of an amazing move. Yeah,
Speaker 2: she is very tattooed. Yeah, it's like it's completely nuts. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And after you know, she has all these incredible roles.
Speaker 1: But in the nineties, she ends up having the epstein
Speaker 1: bar virus, which leaves are really fatigued and unable to
Speaker 1: do both the jobs that she had been doing for
Speaker 1: so long, and that she had been sort of really
Speaker 1: working her ass off in both of those ses, but
Speaker 1: suddenly it was very fatigued, started doing infomercials. You know,
Speaker 1: is regarded as again kind of uncool at this point.
Speaker 1: You know, this was a time, especially when it was
Speaker 1: like the idea that she was passed her prime was
Speaker 1: a very big part of how people saw her and
Speaker 1: saw a lot of women her age coming into to
Speaker 1: music or film or kind of moving on with their
Speaker 1: careers at this point. So the nineties end up being
Speaker 1: a slow period for Share. We don't really hear much
Speaker 1: from Share in the nineties. She is again doing infomercials,
Speaker 1: not acting as much as a brief aside. Before we
Speaker 1: get to believe She does a writing camp in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four, writes a bunch of songs that would end
Speaker 1: up not being released for several years because you know,
Speaker 1: this is kind of a Share is not the same
Speaker 1: type of superstar that she had been just a decade prior.
Speaker 1: But she writes a song inspired by Kirk Comaine's death
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty four. This was a songwriting era for Share.
Speaker 1: She was doing some introspection writing some songs. But it's
Speaker 1: a little fun fact I love from the nineties Share
Speaker 1: that we didn't hear that song until Not Commercial comes
Speaker 1: out in the early two thousands. Great album, one of
Speaker 1: the first Internet only album releases. But you know, she
Speaker 1: has her big return in nineteen ninety eight. Of course,
Speaker 1: that's the same year that Sunny dies very tragically in
Speaker 1: a ski accident. And I mean, this is you know,
Speaker 1: this is a huge earth shattering moment for Sharing. This
Speaker 1: is someone that she had known for most of her life.
Speaker 1: At this point, even though they had divorced, they still
Speaker 1: had a child together. They still kind of were in
Speaker 1: and eye of each other's lives. They had done sort
Speaker 1: of like a mini reunion on I Believe Letterman not
Speaker 1: too long before he had died. They had really found
Speaker 1: peace with each other before he had passed, So this
Speaker 1: was a really obviously, very tragic and earth scattering moment
Speaker 1: in SHARE's life. She delivered a very have you seen
Speaker 1: the video of the eulogy, of course, like absolutely studying
Speaker 1: and heartbreaking moment. So when a song like Believe comes out,
Speaker 1: it feels very apt in a lot of ways, lyrically
Speaker 1: about kind of what Share is going through in her
Speaker 1: life and after a really major loss of someone very
Speaker 1: transformative in her career end existence.
Speaker 2: Well, this is Sharre in your fifties, and this is
Speaker 2: someone who was not expected to still be famous in
Speaker 2: her twenties, and she was considered washed up by the
Speaker 2: time she was at the end of her teens, and
Speaker 2: she certainly was not expected to be still going, still growing,
Speaker 2: still experimenting, still relevant into her thirties. So for Shared
Speaker 2: to be entering her fifties with a song like this, well,
Speaker 2: I mean it's got to be kind of.
Speaker 1: Thematic, yeah, And I mean this song is one of
Speaker 1: the great dance songs of all time. This is a
Speaker 1: song that's fitting into the dance pop renaissance at the
Speaker 1: late nineties, the kind of euro dance club wave that's
Speaker 1: happening across music. I mean, this is a pretty unexpected
Speaker 1: sound for someone who is entering their fifties as a
Speaker 1: pop star at this time. Instead of being like acting
Speaker 1: washed up in the way that so much of the
Speaker 1: industry thought that she was, She's like, actually, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: make something that feels so current, more current than anything else,
Speaker 1: and also invent auto tune or make auto tune popular
Speaker 1: or whatever. But I'm saying she's invented I'm going to
Speaker 1: say that she invented it. But she makes auto tune
Speaker 1: something that people like Tea Pain and Kanye West would
Speaker 1: make a big part of their music just a decade later.
Speaker 1: You know, like, this is someone who was ahead of
Speaker 1: the curve at you know, so many decades into her
Speaker 1: career still and.
Speaker 2: The beautiful moment where her voice takes on. Just to
Speaker 2: be clear, this this wasn't a vocoders like.
Speaker 3: The Yeah, it was the pitch correction.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was such a crazy sound.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and also just I mean lyrically too,
Speaker 1: the song is so great. I mean, it's like one
Speaker 1: of the great sort of hopeful, optimistic, kind of ephoric
Speaker 1: dance songs. Do you believe in life after Love, incredible line,
Speaker 1: gutting line, what a question and again, like especially in
Speaker 1: the context of that year for Sharing, in the context
Speaker 1: of the nineties, for Share, I mean, this was a
Speaker 1: time when she was at a truly I mean there
Speaker 1: were low points in her career and in her life,
Speaker 1: but she truly was dealing with major health issues, was
Speaker 1: truly dealing with kind of an uncertain future for some time,
Speaker 1: and then lost someone who was, for you know, at
Speaker 1: one point, the love of her life and so one
Speaker 1: who she considered to be sort of a great love
Speaker 1: in her life, even with sort of how fraught the
Speaker 1: relationship was towards the end and at times, you know,
Speaker 1: even in the beginning, but you know, to kind of
Speaker 1: have a soil like that very lyrically that looks back
Speaker 1: on that and feels so apt to that moment and
Speaker 1: then has sort of this larger than life existence is
Speaker 1: pretty remarkable and incredible.
Speaker 2: And it's well, the autotune. It's not being used to
Speaker 2: fix flaws in her performance. It's something that's very flaunted
Speaker 2: and it's used as a musical hook. It's not used to,
Speaker 2: you know, to hide anything about her voice. It's the
Speaker 2: part when she sings when she comes to a really
Speaker 2: emotional and self doubting and questioning part of the song
Speaker 2: and that little flutter like it takes harm and Yeah,
Speaker 2: and it's almost like a little vocal pirouette that is
Speaker 2: like very like blatantly digital. It's a really kind of
Speaker 2: strange moment in terms of like the vocal where it
Speaker 2: becomes very artificial, very robotic for a second and just
Speaker 2: makes it seem more human. It's really kind of an
Speaker 2: astoundingly beautiful moment. It's not meant to be like hidden
Speaker 2: or anything. It's very it expresses a part of this
Speaker 2: song that is so perfectly suited to SHARE's voice by
Speaker 2: just really kind of robotically freakishly altering it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the producer Mark Taylor talked about it and
Speaker 1: how he just kind of wants to experiment with what
Speaker 1: it would sound like on this song and see if
Speaker 1: she was okay with it, and was kind of worried
Speaker 1: that she wouldn't be okay with something that is and
Speaker 1: had been known as pitch correction technology. And I mean
Speaker 1: she ended up really loving what that did for this
Speaker 1: song as well. And I mean that ended up being
Speaker 1: something that would really change pop music and also again,
Speaker 1: this became a Grammy Award winning.
Speaker 3: Song for Share.
Speaker 1: This became and still is one of the biggest hits
Speaker 1: of her career, the biggest hit of her career, I
Speaker 1: mean one of the top selling songs of her career,
Speaker 1: and I mean really sat on a new path of
Speaker 1: what we think of stars in their fifties, women in
Speaker 1: their fifties, and like how we can not see that
Speaker 1: as sort of like the end of their career. This
Speaker 1: is a totally new beginning. Everything has happened since then
Speaker 1: is remarkable. I mean, Chare only gets more popular every
Speaker 1: single year.
Speaker 3: She's had such.
Speaker 1: A string of songs and even movies that have continued
Speaker 1: to keep her, you know, just being one of the
Speaker 1: most beloved figures in entertainment history. Great Twitter account, just
Speaker 1: in a really truly remarkable Twitter account.
Speaker 2: Future historians will remember Twitter only as this weird little
Speaker 2: fad that happened during SHARE's timeline. Yeah, like the Share story,
Speaker 2: Twitter will be a minor footnote to like something that
Speaker 2: happened that chair made worthwhile.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we are joining now by Rob Thomas, also known
Speaker 1: as bright Light bright Light, who is a recording artist, producer,
Speaker 1: and DJ. Thank you so much for joining us today
Speaker 1: to talk about Believe and Share.
Speaker 4: Well, it's not exactly a hoddship talking about this lady
Speaker 4: or this song.
Speaker 5: So I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was wondering, do you remember the first time
Speaker 1: you heard Share at all in your life?
Speaker 4: I think Share is always been there. My parents were
Speaker 4: sort of big music fans, and they listened to the Beatles,
Speaker 4: and like you know, Share was and sort of mixtapes
Speaker 4: with that.
Speaker 5: She's just always on TV.
Speaker 4: I was born in eighty two, so when I was
Speaker 4: growing up, it was right in the peak of when
Speaker 4: she had like film stardom, So I used to see
Speaker 4: her in the background in like Moonstruck and which is
Speaker 4: Vstwick and you know, all those films. But maybe like
Speaker 4: the first time that I really paid attention to what
Speaker 4: she was doing was sort of mid nineties with It's
Speaker 4: a Man's World Record. And then when this song came out,
Speaker 4: I ran to Woolworth's in Neath, which is my hometown,
Speaker 4: to buy this on CD single.
Speaker 5: So she's always been like a presence in my life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what was it like to kind of hear this
Speaker 1: pivot that Share had taken and also to then see
Speaker 1: it blow up and kind of give her this how
Speaker 1: room lives by that point, like or.
Speaker 4: It was wild to see that, unlike the other songs
Speaker 4: that I had heard of hers, everyone was talking about
Speaker 4: the song. Everyone in school was talking about it, like
Speaker 4: straight kids, weird kids, bullies and like you know, the
Speaker 4: popular kids. They were all talking about Believe and everyone
Speaker 4: was playing it and you could hear it everywhere. It
Speaker 4: was the first time I think I'd heard this sort
Speaker 4: of like completely all engulfing wave around one artist who
Speaker 4: everyone already knew and a song that everyone just loved.
Speaker 4: It was really amazing, I thought, because like I loved
Speaker 4: like the Junior Vasquez remix of one by One, which
Speaker 4: is you know, it's a man's world record, but that
Speaker 4: wasn't really.
Speaker 5: Like a hit.
Speaker 4: So I'd heard her in a dance well before. By
Speaker 4: hearing her in this, I think a very British centric
Speaker 4: sound because of Brian Higgins, and it sounded like you
Speaker 4: were in a British gay club, That's all it sounded like.
Speaker 5: To me.
Speaker 4: I think it was like helped by the popularity of
Speaker 4: like queer as Folk, which was out for us in
Speaker 4: like ninety seven ninety eight, I think, and people were
Speaker 4: listening to like really gay music. You know, we had
Speaker 4: like Gena Ge and we had Spice Girls and all
Speaker 4: these things which are just like so camp that Share
Speaker 4: released this anthem that just sounded like a British gay anthem. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and it was like just amazing and just fabulous.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I always think so much about like where the nineties
Speaker 1: started to like where the nineties ended up, especially kind
Speaker 1: of like thinking about the popularity of like grunge and
Speaker 1: like pop punk and all, and like you know to
Speaker 1: the moving to the sound of like europop and like
Speaker 1: the very kind of believe and like house music that
Speaker 1: we would.
Speaker 3: End up with by the end of the nineties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like it was a fabulous thing for me. I
Speaker 4: think it just made everybody on the same page for
Speaker 4: a moment in British pop culture, and everyone loved it.
Speaker 4: And you'd hear it in like coffee shops and clubs,
Speaker 4: straight and gay clubs, and you would just hear it
Speaker 4: on the radio everywhere and then like shopping centers, and
Speaker 4: it felt like just so wild to see like one
Speaker 4: song was literally everywhere, especially for like a heritage artist
Speaker 4: quote unquote who traditionally like younger kids wouldn't gravitate towards
Speaker 4: in terms of like buying like a new single or
Speaker 4: being like, that's the cool new song. It was really
Speaker 4: special and we've seen it happen a couple times since,
Speaker 4: but to see somebody of that caliber at that stage
Speaker 4: in their career have a number one hit pretty much
Speaker 4: worldwide was just amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's well because sometimes when a song turns out
Speaker 2: to be immortal, it's a surprise that it lasts a long.
Speaker 2: Believe was a song that hearing it then you instantly
Speaker 2: knew it was a song that it was going to
Speaker 2: be with us forever. It's really a tone with song.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a shame that she hates it. It's a
Speaker 4: real shame that she hates it. It's well documented. I
Speaker 4: don't know if you've read that interview where somebody says, like,
Speaker 4: what was it like when Believe was everywhere?
Speaker 5: And she says it was a nightmare.
Speaker 4: It's just just the opposite of what you imagine someone
Speaker 4: having a worldwide number one to be. And I really
Speaker 4: hope that she's got a place in her heart for
Speaker 4: it now because it is so special to so many people.
Speaker 4: And we were just saying off camera that when I
Speaker 4: DJ a lot. Almost every time that I DJ, somebody
Speaker 4: requests the song and it's a very mixed bag about
Speaker 4: what or age or demographic they are. That it doesn't
Speaker 4: really seem to matter. Everyone still loves dancing to the song.
Speaker 4: And when you play it and you hear the first.
Speaker 5: Love love, people like ah ha.
Speaker 4: It's like, you know, people just like melt into like
Speaker 4: it's like ephemeral things and they just they can't cope
Speaker 4: with how they go feral as wild.
Speaker 3: Do you remember the first time you ever danced to
Speaker 3: in a club?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: I did go out a little bit underage, and I
Speaker 4: remember this being played in H two O, which is
Speaker 4: the gay club that we had in Swansea. I say
Speaker 4: gay club, not LGBTQ plus space because it was back
Speaker 4: then called the gay club. So just to backdate myself
Speaker 4: and how old I actually am, and I remember we
Speaker 4: had like three floors in that club. Downstairs was like
Speaker 4: a bar which closed at eleven. Then there was like
Speaker 4: a kind of pseudo bar restaurant in the middle, which
Speaker 4: was a weird choice, and then upstairs would be the
Speaker 4: big dance floor and you would hear it systematically on
Speaker 4: each floor.
Speaker 5: You know, as you went from one to the other.
Speaker 4: You would hear it like in every single space in
Speaker 4: the bar until you've got to the dance floor, and
Speaker 4: then it'd be played at least once or twice at night.
Speaker 4: So that was the space I heard it, and everyone
Speaker 4: was like drunk by the marina in Swansea, you know,
Speaker 4: drinking like these awful Alco pops. I don't know if
Speaker 4: you have those here, but like smiron off ice and
Speaker 4: things like that, smone off ice in your hand, smoke
Speaker 4: machine is on. You just hear Share and everyone's just
Speaker 4: like going absolutely crazy, and it was just such a
Speaker 4: specific sound and such a specific moment in time, and
Speaker 4: all the stuff that Brian Higgins did since that it
Speaker 4: is just iconic as well. But thinking about this is
Speaker 4: like a really pivotal moment for him, for chef, for.
Speaker 5: Like British pop culture, for like pop music.
Speaker 4: I think really because it's sort of changed agism in
Speaker 4: a way, which is really cool. And I think it
Speaker 4: made people focus on the song, not necessarily what they
Speaker 4: thought about the artist, and the song kind of came
Speaker 4: first for a while.
Speaker 5: It's really cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all because Share, like you said, she'd already
Speaker 2: built your legend in some was at that point it
Speaker 2: didn't seem like she needed another iconic song, and yet
Speaker 2: it really invented in your share.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it really did. I think like the sort of
Speaker 4: wiggery was just wonderful. It was really cool, I think
Speaker 4: because she was even if she wasn't having that much
Speaker 4: fun with it, she presented like she was having a
Speaker 4: blast and it was really infectious. Like the artwork was
Speaker 4: this like shimmery, kind of like chintzy. It's like kind
Speaker 4: of like trashy and fabulous. So like if you have
Speaker 4: like a cheap fabric that makes a dress that feels great.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's kind of like that.
Speaker 4: So it was like a bit gaudy, a bit tasteless,
Speaker 4: but also fabulous and so cool and like you just
Speaker 4: wanted to be part of it. The wigs were just
Speaker 4: so cool and so fun, and she looked amazing and
Speaker 4: everyone was like.
Speaker 5: How could she possibly be that age?
Speaker 4: She sounds amazing on this record, Like the voice is
Speaker 4: just wild, it's perfect, it's perfect for this the song,
Speaker 4: the production is perfect.
Speaker 5: The vocoder, which is just like weird thing to have.
Speaker 5: I don't know whose.
Speaker 4: Decision that was, but it was genius, you know, because
Speaker 4: everyone was like doing it in school.
Speaker 5: We'd be like really when we were in all lessons.
Speaker 4: It had so many little hooks that really got itself
Speaker 4: into pop culture, and it was inescapable for like a
Speaker 4: really long time and is now, but like it was
Speaker 4: in its peak for for months and months and months
Speaker 4: and months and months.
Speaker 2: I think, well, it speaks to everybody. I was at
Speaker 2: a punk rock show last week Mannequin Pussy and at
Speaker 2: the end they were trying to shew everybody out, but
Speaker 2: that song came on and.
Speaker 4: Ever left a room, No one ever will, no one
Speaker 4: ever was so good. It's not even my favorite song
Speaker 4: on that record, but it is just one of the
Speaker 4: best pop songs or pop dance songs of all time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would love to hear more about that experience
Speaker 1: of seeing a Share audience respawned to Share so many
Speaker 1: times and kind of in across Europe on that tour, Like,
Speaker 1: what was that.
Speaker 3: Like for you?
Speaker 4: It was really wild. So for anyone that doesn't know
Speaker 4: I opened for Share on too, I didn't nine. I
Speaker 4: was with her, which I never thought.
Speaker 5: I would do.
Speaker 4: And it's the craziest sentence to say, but I toured
Speaker 4: with her around Europe. I'd already seen the show in Brooklyn.
Speaker 4: I bought tickets for that before I even thought that
Speaker 4: I would get a look in to be the opening act.
Speaker 4: So I'd seen the show from you know, the cheap
Speaker 4: seats because I'm a bit of a cheap queen, and
Speaker 4: it's just so much fun. And we were watching it
Speaker 4: and you know, the video montages of like her movie career,
Speaker 4: all of the tracks, even from this album, like strong
Speaker 4: Enough and All Enoughing, which we're in the set list,
Speaker 4: have just such an amazing reaction from the people. But
Speaker 4: then when believe it was like the encore track, you know,
Speaker 4: you just feel the room everyone just sort of like
Speaker 4: starts lifting out of their seats and going into space
Speaker 4: because it really is such an amazing song. And she
Speaker 4: has hits from every decade, you know, and she has
Speaker 4: fans from every conceivable living age bracket, which is really
Speaker 4: amazing as well, and they all have their favorites from
Speaker 4: different parts of her life. But there's really no denying that,
Speaker 4: like this particular song is the moment where everyone is
Speaker 4: like tens across the board.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, amazing to watch him.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for joining us. I'm sure
Speaker 1: that's us could talk about share for the next several days.
Speaker 1: Thanks thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five
Speaker 1: hundred Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone and iHeartMedia Rinnan Hosted by Me, Britney Spannis
Speaker 1: and Rob Sheffield. Executive produced by Gus Winner, Jason Fine,
Speaker 1: Alex Dale and Christian Horde, and produced by Jesse Cannon,
Speaker 1: with music supervision by Eric Seiler.