Laura Branigan -- Gloria

 

For this week's ROY, we have Laura Branigan, and may I say off the top that the New York State-born singer and actress left us way too soon eighteen years ago at the age of 52. But she left a legacy of some fine music for us 80s fans, and first off, was her June 1982 single "Gloria".

I heard "Gloria" all sorts of times on the radio but I think that I saw this even more on TV via the various music shows, and every time that I do hear it like I am right now as I type this, I get taken back to that summer of 1983 when I had my first summer job painting fences all day in a townhouse development in Scarborough. That intro especially gets me into my happy 80s space but I think anyone named Gloria would be pretty happy with this anthem.

"Gloria" hit No. 1 in Canada and then No. 2 in America, going Platinum in both countries. And then some 37 years later, the NHL's St. Louis Blues brought the song back as their victory tune and good luck mascot to help get them their first Stanley Cup tournament in 2019. The story can be found in the Wikipedia article for the song.

But once again in a ROY article, I was left surprised finding out that a beloved 80s pop song was actually a cover of an original. Yup, this happened to me with Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want to Have Fun", and as was the case with "Hoho ni Kakaru Namida"（ほほにかかる涙）that I wrote about yesterday, "Gloria" was first recorded by an Italian singer named Umberto Tozzi back in 1979 with Tozzi and Giancarlo Bigazzi behind its creation. Trevor Veitch was responsible for the English lyrics for Branigan's cover.

So, what were the Top 3 on Oricon in June 1982?

1. Hiromi Iwasaki -- Madonna Tachi no Lullaby (聖母たちのララバイ）

2. Seiko Matsuda -- Nagisa no Balcony (渚のバルコニー）

3. Kumiko Yamashita -- Sekido Komachi Doki （赤道小町ドキッ）