Songoftheday 11/23/12 - It's poetry in motion she turned her tender eyes to me, it's deep as any ocean as sweet as any harmony...

Thomas Dolby - "She Blinded Me With Science"
from the album The Golden Age Of Wireless (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #5 (four weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 15

Today's Song of the Day is by synthesizer whiz Thomas Dolby, who was actually born with the last name Robertson in London (not Cairo, Egypt, as he once claimed). After building up experience doing session work (like doing keyboards on Foreigner's 4 and Def Leppard's Pyromania albums), he released his debut album, The Golden Age Of Wireless, in 1982, albeit without the iconic hit he's most known for. The first single he released, the bouncy "Europa & The Pirate Twins", was a minor hit in Britain, peaking at #48, and actually made the rock radio chart at #37 in 1982. The followup, the bleak wartime piece "One Of Our Submarines", did even better in the US making the top-20 on the rock chart, while in Britain, his "Windpower" became his first UK top-40 hit.

Songs like these made Dolby an electronic music notable, but after Dolby released an EP called Blinded With Science that included extended versions of these songs plus a brand new track called "She Blinded Me With Science", that made him a pop radio star. With comic yet funky production and guitar parts provided by XTC's Andy Partridge, the song gave Thomas the big break on radio around the world, and the video, featuring real-life scientist Magnus Pyke (a friend of Dolby's Greek Culture professor dad) as the doctor in an asylum for "scientists"...

"She Blinded Me With Science" spent two months in the US pop top-10, as well as making the top-10 on the rock and dance chart, and even peaking in the top-half of the R&B chart (no doubt due to its rap-influenced keyboard riffs). It also topped the pop chart in Canada as well, but shockingly didn't even get to place in the top-40 in his native England. His Golden Age Of Wireless album was re-released with the new song on it (one of the first times a new act got this treatment) and reached the top-20, as did the original EP.

However, it would be Dolby's final top-40 hit in the States, although he still would continue to have success in Great Britain for the next ten years. And "Science" would continue to be one of those rare "novelty"-type records you still aren't ashamed to like...

That same year the artist under the moniker Dolby's Cube incorporated the song on his minor hit "Get Out Of the Mix", which went to #80 in the UK..