Let's Discuss Helen Reddy's Eerie 1974 Hit, "Angie Baby."

I love that lyric at the end of the song - "It's so nice to be insane. No one asks you to explain." Chilling.

I remember her performing the song on The Carol Burnett Show, and while she was singing it, they had actors acting out the tune in the background. I remember a bedroom setting and a girl in pigtails dancing around. And I remember the boy coming in, then "special effects" were used to show him shrinking down into the radio.

I wish I could find that clip online. I've looked all over for it. Does anybody else remember that?

My favorite song of hers -- although I've never understood it, either!

Seems pretty straightforward to me: Angie was mentally ill and imagined she lived in the world of the songs she listened to. A boy who wanted to prey on her sneaks into her room, she attacks him in self defense, and kills him and hides him in the room but imagines (because of her mental illness) that he's still there as her secret lover.

I'd like to think she has one of those big 1930s radios and has literally stuffed his body in there, but that's just wishful thinking.

Hollywood Seven is another of those great OTT story songs from that period.

I thought it was a great song, but it's too bad Helen Reddy sang it. She was a mediocre singer.

I thought the song had a supernatural bent. It sounded like a horror story A crazy girl who does nothing but stay in her room and listen to the radio; a guy sneaks into her room, maybe on a dare, and due to the force of her insane desire he's sucked into the radio where he's doomed to stay forever as Angie's "secret lover." It sounds like a story from one of those old horror magazines like "Creepy" or "Eerie" or "Vampirella."

There was already a thread

Not really the same thing, R7.

R4 Hiding the body in her room. I assume the next chapter of the song involves her parents smelling something awful and discovering the kid.

It has a sort of Looking For Mr Goodbar vibe about it - doesn't it?

I think R4 has it.

Angie was probably autistic.

Ruby Red Dress had PTSD (so did Pete from [italic][bold]P[/bold]e[bold]t[/bold]e'[bold]s D[/bold]ragon, hence the name and the dragon essentially being the personification of weed)

Delta Dawn is just deluding herself into thinking the mysterious dark-haired man is ever coming back, and at 41 she can't do better.

Paper Lace's "The Night Chicago Died" and "Billy, Don't Be A Hero."

She did so many weird lady songs, from Delta Dawn to Ruby Red Dress to Gladiola

A cartoon explains it all

Poor ol' Ruby Red Dress always makes me sad.

Thanks, R15. I remember the song as a child, but didn't pay too much attention to the lyrics other than the "A-aN-Gee Baby..." refrain. Now that I'm really hearing the song....YIKES!

Let's see what Alan O'Day (who wrote the song) has to say:

The first time I went to America, this was a big hit (along with Mandy by Barry Manilow, which had already been a hit in England by someone else with the tile BRandy) - my father loved it and bought the 8 Track and took it back to England and played it endlessly on a sort of 8Track player we also bought there that looked like a thing you use to set off a bomb.

Nothing takes you back like a good song.

R2. YES!!!! I remember it. I have said in conversation before that this was the first music video ever. Can't believe another gayling saw that same Carol Burnett episode and remembers it

Angie Baby was living in a world of make-believe, like most DLers.

I found the image of a dead boy as a "lover who keeps her satisfied" very disturbing.

I always loved the story of how Mary Travers never could get through "I Am Woman" because whenever she got to the line "I am invincible" she'd laugh uncontrollably, bless her.

Angie Baby, you're an especial lady!

R20, count me as another gayling who saw that episode too, IT was a rerun, though, in the 80s.

Helen says people are always presenting her with their theories - she finds what they come up with reveals a lot about them.