The man who co-wrote Rihanna’s first number one single SOS has revealed that the lyrics to the song are actually the names of 1980s hits.
SOS was released on February 14, 2006 as the lead single from Rihanna’s second studio album ‘A Girl Like Me’.
SOS topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart for three consecutive weeks, becoming RIhanna’s first number one single.
Nearly two decades after its release, SOS’s co-songwriter Evan “Kidd” Bogart shared a surprising tidbit about the hit in a new interview with podcaster Daniel Wall.
During a performance at the Behind the wall In the podcast, Bogart said the second verse of SOS consists almost entirely of song titles from the 1980s, “strung together like sentences,” including hits by Michael Jackson and English rock band Cutting Crew.
SOS’ co-songwriter Evan “Kidd” Bogart shared a surprising bit of trivia about the hit in a new interview
Grammy winner Bogart, who co-wrote SOS with Jonathan Reuven ‘JR’. Totem told Wall, “The entire second verse of that song is eighties song titles strung together like sentences because I thought it would be super clever.”
Bogart, who won a Grammy for Beyonce’s 2008 hit Halo, then shared the names of the songs and their lyrics that make up the verse, in the order they appear.
“Take on me [by] A-ha,” he began, before reciting the lines that ended up in SOS. ‘You know inside that you feel it good. Hire me.”
This is followed by the lines ‘I could just die up in your arms tonight’ from Cutting Crew’s (I Just) Died In Your Arms, before Rihanna sings the title of Modern English’s hit I Melt With You and Head Over Heels from Tears for Fears. .
The last two songs from the 1980s that complete the verse are You Keep Me Hangin’ On by English pop star Kim Wilde and Jackson’s The Way You Make Me Feel.
A clip of Bogart revealing the real meaning of Rihanna’s SOS lyrics went viral on TikTok as fans couldn’t believe they never noticed this ‘creative’ detail.
One response said: ‘That’s actually very creative. Pretty cool.”
Another person added: “He’s been waiting for the chance to tell us about the inside joke for 20 years.”
During an appearance on the Behind The Wall podcast, Bogart said the second verse of SOS consists almost entirely of song titles from the 1980s, “strung together like sentences.”
SOS was released on February 14, 2006 as the lead single from Rihanna’s second studio album ‘A Girl Like Me’.
Bogart won a Grammy Award for his work on Beyonce’s 2008 hit Halo
A third user admitted that they “always thought” that verse was “so random,” while a fourth person joked, “He high-key manifested the song’s success by using the #1 song titles in the song.”
The Way You Make Me Feel from Jackson’s seventh studio album Bad peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on January 23, 1988.
Wilde’s You Keep Me Eating On topped the charts for a week in June 1987, but Head Over Heels’ hit Tears for Fears failed to quite secure the top spot, peaking at number three.
British new-wave/post-punk band Modern English’s I Melt With You reached number seven on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock Chart in 1983, but didn’t really break into the Hot 100 top 10.
Cutting Crew’s biggest hit to date (I Just) Died peaked at number one in the United States, Canada, Norway and Finland, and the re-recorded version of Norwegian synth-pop band A-ha’s Take On Me shot to number one . on the Billboard Hot 100 on October 19, 1985.
In response to the revelation that SOS is littered with references to songs from the 1980s, one TikTok user commented: “this song is as old as all the songs it referenced when SOS was new.”
Another person added that SOS was the “definition of an ’80s Inspired Masterpiece,” before Wall responded, “Definitely a masterpiece.”
Several people also pointed to the One Direction song Better Than Words as another popular example of a ‘just be song titles’ song.