Taylor Dayne -- Tell It to My Heart

 

Welcome to another Thursday Reminiscings of Youth where I go over some of the Western pop songs that I used to hear and cherish back in my childhood and youth. I was thinking about posting something by a female singer that I had yet to cover here on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" and by wonderful providence, one lady from my memories showed up yesterday on the local news channel for an interview: singer-songwriter and actress Taylor Dayne. I hadn't heard from her in a few decades and I'm glad that she's still out and about especially since she did have to tackle cancer several years ago.

Of course, when it comes to Taylor Dayne, the one song that we'll always remember is her debut single "Tell It to My Heart"  (by songwriters Seth Swirsky and Ernie Gold) which hit the music store shelves in July 1987. Another part of my Dayne memories is the music video for the song: big hair, big cosmetics, big leather and the dancing backup. Couldn't get more 80s than that! We ended up getting the 12" remix record along with a CD of her album "Tell It to My Heart".

When I look back at the song, I was also drawn to how she sang it. There was that certain way she sang out "heart" which always stood out to me. Her Wikipedia biography states that she was born and raised in the New York City area so perhaps it was something to do with a Bronx or Brooklyn accent. "Tell It to My Heart" has been described in its own article as dance-pop, freestyle and Hi-NRG, and if it had been created in Europe, I would have said perhaps Eurobeat as well. The song peaked at No. 7 on US Billboard in January 1988; it did even better in the UK where it hit No. 3.

So, what was being released in Japan in July 1987?

Miki Imai -- Yasei no Kaze（野性の風）

Hideaki Tokunaga -- Kagayaki Nagara（輝きながら...）

BOOWY -- Marionette