When you’re an up-and-coming artist, it’s safe to say that you’re going to take any work that’ll keep the lights on. But always bear in mind that when fame does eventually strike, your top priority will become making sure that your skeletons in the closet stay there.
So the story goes for Madonna Louise Ciccone, an up-and-coming singer/dancer/whatever who thought she’d finally found her lifeline when just-ahead-of-the-curve Was (Not Was) came looking for a vocalist who could seal the deal on their first real hit.
The track in need of a front was called Shake Your Head (Let’s Go To Bed) and despite Madonna’s subsequent best efforts to ensure that you never heard it, it remains alive, well and a still-gossiped-about '90s hit across Europe – if only on account of it having one of the most tortuous musical backstories ever.
Let’s take a step back.
Back in 1983, rising pop funk curio Was (Not Was) were on the cusp of greatness. Garnering major record company attention following their 1981 self-titled debut album, brothers Don and David Was were able to court sizey backing for their follow-up, Born to Laugh at Tornadoes.
So much so that despite having tracks already in the can, the perfectionist pair went into overdrive to ensure that every track was a big hitter.
One such effort was their amiable groove, Shake Your Head. Stuck for a vocalist, the track’s producer Stephen Bray had put his girlfriend in the booth – an as-yet undiscovered, pre-fame Madonna – and while Madonna’s performance was perfectly suited to the track's sass and charm, the Was brothers had bigger ideas than giving Bray’s girlfriend a break.
What if they could get someone bigger, they pondered? What about… Ozzy Osboure? After all, putting Ozzy on Shake Your Head has got to be better than… Er… What was her name again?
“She did a great job… but it didn’t sound like Was (Not Was) to me anymore,” Don Was told Rolling Stone, opting to have Ozzy rework the song as more groove-based rap.
And incredibly – through a multitude of machinations and string-pulling – it is indeed Osbourne who voices the first public airing of Shake Your Head as track four, side one on Born To Laugh At Tornadoes, an album which also features such vocal talents as Mel Tormé, Mitch Ryder and Doug Fieger… And which only ever peaked at number 134 on the U.S. Billboard chart…
Third time lucky
Back to the drawing board for album number three then. And – finally – some hits! Walk The Dinosaur, Spy In The House of Love and Anything Can Happen fired up 1991’s What Up Dog album, and with the band finally in the spotlight, their prodigious and powerful (but by-and-large unknown) previous output was ripe for re-release.
Thus came the compilation, 1992’s Hello Dad, I’m In Jail – a crude mash-up of the best of the band’s unknown work thus far, with one track garnering particular attention. Who was that girl on Shake Your Head again?…
With Madonna by now at the height of her powers, Was (Not Was) were effectively now in possession of an unreleased vocal by a megastar and their label couldn’t believe their luck.
“We realized about eight years later that we had Ozzy and Madonna on parallel tracks," explained Was. "So we gave it to a remixer.”
However, its release would require the newly minted Madonna to sign off on her pre-fame performance from almost a decade earlier, and with memories of being snubbed in favour of Ozzy Osbourne still living large, she unsurprisingly opted to exact her revenge.
A Shake Your Head single featuring the Queen of Pop? Forget it.
Nevertheless, undeterred, and knowing that they had a hit on their hands, the band typically flipped to an unlikely plan B. It was time to call Kim Basinger.
Batman star Basinger was midway through a relationship with the creator of its soundtrack, Prince, who, after becoming smitten, had written and recorded an entire (unreleased) album for her.
With the pair keen to kickstart a second coming as a music star, Basinger stepped into the studio for Shake Your Head and – perhaps a little green as to what was required – dutifully copied Madonna’s vocals syllable for syllable.
Time for the finishing touch – a remix by the so-hot-back-then Steve ‘Silk’ Hurley who gave it the luxe house treatment he’d been serving all over hits like A Little Bit More for Kim Sims and Got Love For You for Jomanda. And Hurley produced an awesome mix… With one small problem. He used Madonna’s vocals rather than Basinger’s…
“When they sent me the vocals and all their master parts, I didn’t know the backstory, so I just thought that Kim Basinger sounded like Madonna,” Hurley told S+S Chicago. “So when I sent them the remix, they loved it but I used the wrong vocals. So I had to get the new vocals from them and create the mix over again with Kim’s vocals.” And Hurley didn’t stop there.
With Osbourne’s 1983 vocals still on the multi-track, Hurley turned the track into the most bizarre duet ever… “But all the extra time put in was worth it,” Hurley reckoned. “It ended up being Was (Not Was)’s biggest record, reaching number four on the UK singles chart.”
Incredibly, despite its all-star line-up and European and Australian success, the track never earned a US release and to this day remains a much-whispered about Ozzy anomaly in the country that took him to its heart.
And thanks to one more mix-up – in which Hurley’s original, top secret, Madonna-blocked remix was accidentally sent to, and included on UK dance compilation Now Dance 92 – Doh! – we can all enjoy the track as everyone (except Madonna) intended below.
