The only annoying aspect of the huge success of the irrepressible Go-Gos back in the Eighties was the way everybody focussed on the lead singer, Belinda Carlisle, and ignored the group’s far more interesting songwriter, one of the most talented pop composers of her era. You can hear the extent to which Jane Wiedlin owns the Go-Go’s biggest hit, Our Lips Are Sealed, in this acoustic demo. This woman knew her way around a melody, and the clever lyrics, skewering the politics and gossip of toxic high school society, are much easier to discern in this version. Plus, this song boasts a number of clever chord shifts and one of the most sublime middle-eights on record.
When the group split up, Jane had some success, but nowhere close to what she deserved. One assumes she’s set for life, though, just on the royalties from this song alone (even though she has to split them with purported co-writer Terry Hall of Fun Boy Three, with whom Wiedlin had a brief fling). Nobody does pop better than this.
She was prettier than Carlisle too.
the needlefish 