We’re starting off an angelic week of classic tunes with your song with angel in the title song of the day, “Undercover Angel” by Alan O’Day. This perfect piece of ’70s pop fluff was released in February of 1977 and peaked at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Cash Box Top 100, and the Record World charts. It ended up as the number nine song of the entire year, according to Billboard. (Interestingly, another “angel” song—”Angel in Your Arms” by Hot—was number five for the year.)
One of the unique things about “Undercover Angel” is that it was a single only—it didn’t appear on an album first. That was something more common in the ’60s than in later years, making this song and Mr. O’Day a literal one-hit wonder.
The lyrics are a play on words, with the singer’s girl being an angel under the covers, hence the word “undercover.” That’s certainly more clever than the lyrics in the song’s pre-chorus, which go:
I said, “What?” She said, “Ooh-ooh-ooh, whee”
I said, “All right” She said, “Love me, love me, love me”
There’s not much more to the song than that. Unfortunately, the singer’s girl is just a midnight fantasy and he never had a dream that made sweet love to him. Perhaps, as the young lady suggests, there really is a love for him out there somewhere.
The song was written by Mr. O’Day and produced by Steve Barri and Michael Omartian. I’ve talked about Mr. Barri before, whose career dates back to Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound, leads through the Grass Roots and other studio groups, and includes producing a previous Classic Song of the Day, Cashman & West’s oft-overlooked “American City Suite.” Michael Omartian produced so many number-one hits you can’t count them all, including Christopher Cross’ eponymous debut album and his #1 hit, “Sailing,” for which Omartian won three Grammy awards; he also arranged the infamous “We Are the World” celebrity charity single and played piano on Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic, Katy Lied, and Aja albums.
Alan O’Day had a nice career going as a songwriter before he recorded “Undercover Angel” on his own. He wrote “Rock and Roll Heaven” for the Righteous Brothers (#3 in 1973) and “Angie Baby” for Helen Reddy (#1 in 1974), as well as songs for Bobby Sherman, Cher, and others. After “Undercover Angel” he composed all the music for the Saturday morning children’s show, Muppet Babies. He never had another big hit on his own, however.
Alan O’Day finished out his career as a musical and creative consultant, and kept writing throughout the years. He passed away in 2013 after a battle with brain cancer. He was 72 years old.
Excellent write-up