How the LA pop-punks’ debut single sprang from a secret transatlantic collaboration. “When I got home, we were writing to each other…”

GRAEME THOMSON

IN June 1980, an unsigned all-female American pop-punk group supported The Specials on a jaunt around British seaside towns. During the tour, Terry Hall and the band’s rhythm guitarist embarked on a clandestine love affair. Shortly afterwards, a classic song was born.

A co-write between Hall and Jane WIEDLIN, the Go-Go’s debut single “Our Lips Are Sealed” isn’t simply an oblique comment on the pair’s relationship; it also captures the essence of a band formed out of the LA punk scene. “I knew the lyrics had a story behind them, and that it was a personal exchange between Jane and Terry,” says Go-Go’s singer Belinda CARLISLE. “But I felt and still feel when I sing the song that I can relate to them.”

Lyrically, “Our Lips Are Sealed” subverted sexist stereotypes of gossipy girls whispering behind their hands, preaching instead strength and solidarity. Musically, it was an ingeniously structured three minutes full of unlikely swerves and hard hooks. “I didn’t know what I was doing!” says WIEDLIN. “I didn’t know that certain chords didn’t go together, so I just did it. When I first showed it to the band, I was so nervous I played it in waltz time. [Lead guitarist] Charlotte [Caf ey] said, ‘Why don’t we play it in regular time?’, but it was actually written in regular rock timing, I just played it wrong because I was so nervous.”

Polished up in the studio by producer Richard GOTTEHRER, “Our Lips Are Sealed” slowly won over an American pop audience. On the back of its Top 20 chart success, the Go-Go’s debut album Beauty And The Beat reached No 1 for six weeks in 1982 and sold over two million copies.

As a candid new documentary about the band makes clear, the message of unity and sisterhood underpinning “Our Lips Are Sealed” was frequently tested, yet the Go-Go’s remain a going concern almost four decades later. For the band, their debut single remains something of a lucky charm. “I never get tired of playing that song,” says bass player Kathy VALENTINE. “It’s tried and true.” Versatile, too. In 1983, Terry Hall dressed the song in a more sober suit of clothes with his post-Specials group Fun Boy Three, turning it into a Top 10 UK hit. “British people still think it’s a Fun Boy Three song and the Go-Go’s covered it,” says WIEDLIN, with mock indignation. “Um, no!”