“Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” (Rupert Holmes)

Today’s classic guilty pleasure song of the day is “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” by Rupert Holmes. This frothy ode to infidelity was released in September of 1979 and hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 the week of December 22, making it the final number-one song of the ’70s.

“Escape” is probably the most appealing song about adultery this side of Billy Paul’s “Me and Mrs. Jones.” Although, is it really adultery if you’re cheating on your partner with your partner? I get confused about that. It’s kind of skeezy, anyway, with both the protagonist and his partner deciding to cheat on each other via the personal ads but finding out they’re actually matched with each other. And they laugh about it and have another refreshing cocktail! Yeah, it’s the ’70s; everybody did that.

This is, indeed, one of the most ’70s songs ever written. I mean, you can just picture the guy wearing a patterned polyester shirt, open wide at the collar, with his porn mustache and flared bell bottom slacks with the flat front. And the references—Tinder-swiping youngsters today must think it quaint that these old timers actually placed ads in a newspaper to make a hookup. Meeting at a bar called O’Malley’s for piña coladas, talking about “makin’ love after midnight in the dunes on the cape,” not being much into health food (when everybody else presumably was) and instead into champagne, it’s all of a specific time and place.

Interestingly, the song originally didn’t include the piña colada line. As Mr. Holmes remembers, the first line of the chorus was originally about Humphrey Bogart, as in watching Bogie’s old movies:

“The original lyrics said, ‘If you like Humphrey Bogart and getting caught in the rain.…’

“As I was getting on mic I thought to myself, I’ve done so many movie references to Bogart and wide-screen cinema on my earlier albums, maybe I shouldn’t do one here.

“I thought, What can I substitute? Well, this woman wants an escape, like she wants to go on vacation to the islands. When you go on vacation to the islands, when you sit on the beach and someone asks you if you’d like a drink, you never order a Budweiser, you don’t have a beer. You’re on vacation, you want a drink in a hollowed-out pineapple with the flags of all nations and a parasol. If the drink is blue you’d be very happy. And a long straw. I thought, What are those escape drinks? Let’s see, there’s daiquiri, mai tai, piña colada… I wonder what a piña colada tastes like? I’ve never even had one.

“I thought that instead of singing, ‘If you like Humphrey Bogart,’ with the emphasis on like, I could start it a syllable earlier and go, ‘If you like piña-a coladas.'”

And so a cultural phenomenon was born.

I will say this, however—the song is catchy as hell. Even after the failed (or was it successful?) tryst, you bop along to the loping beat and sing along with that piña colada-infused chorus. Holmes knew how to write a hooky song, that’s for sure. (Plus, I admit to being inspired at the time to try a piña colada—which I liked and continue to drink today.)

That said, Rupert Holmes grew to resent “The Piña Colada Song,” as most of us know it. In his own words:

“I have a feeling that if I saved an entire orphanage from a fire and carried the last child out on my shoulders, as I stood there charred and smoking, they’d say, ‘Aren’t you the guy who wrote the piña colada song?’ It’s tough when you have this one thing that pulls focus from all these other things that you’ve done, yet every songwriter lives to have a song that most everybody knows.”

Yeah, that’s probably right. I mean, did you know that before becoming a solo artist, Rupert Holmes was the keyboardist for the Cuff Links and the Buoys, for whom he wrote that cannibalistic hit, “Timothy?” Or that he wrote a ton of advertising jingles and a bevy of songs for artists like Wayne Newton, Dolly Parton, Barry Manilow, and the Partridge Family? Or that Partners in Crime, the album that contained “Escape,” was actually his fifth album? Or that he had two more top forty hits (“Him” and “Answering Machine,” both in 1980) but then became a successful playwright, writing the words and music for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Say Goodnight, Gracie, and other shows? Of course you didn’t. All you know is that this is the guy who wrote “The Piña Colada Song.” And maybe that’s enough.

Finally, because I know you want to hear the song one more time, here’s Rupert Holmes lip synching “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert. Everybody sing along now:

If you like piña coladas
And gettin’ caught in the rain
If you’re not into yoga
If you have half a brain
If you like makin’ love at midnight
In the dunes on the cape
Then I’m the love that you’ve looked for
Write to me and escape