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Bananarama - I Can't Help It

Music Video | 1987
ArtistBananarama
SongI Can't Help It
AlbumWow
AlbumGreatest Hits Collection
DirectorAndy Morahan
GenrePop
IntroNo
OutroNo
Sound MixStereo
Technical Specificationscolour - format unknown
Release date

Wiki

Synopsis

Bananarama perform "I Can't Help It" in a deliberately extravagant studio setting filled with colorful backdrops, glossy styling, athletic male dancers, fruit and playful glamour. Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward take part in the video's most surreal centerpiece, a milk bath surrounded by fruit and male bodies, while Siobhan Fahey appears separately in tightly framed shots. The result is a bright, campy and knowingly sensual piece of late-1980s pop excess.

Factoids & Trivia

  • The video was made for Bananarama's 1987 album *Wow!* and its disco-influenced third single in the United Kingdom. In the United States, it followed "I Heard a Rumour" as the album's second single.
  • Siobhan Fahey was pregnant during production, which is why her appearances are framed from the shoulders up. She does not take part in the milk-bath sequence.
  • The video's use of topless male dancers and a female-centered display of desire was later discussed as a playful reversal of the way women were commonly presented in pop videos.
  • The song was co-written and produced by the Stock Aitken Waterman team, placing the video within the glossy dance-pop aesthetic that defined much of the trio's late-1980s work.
  • "I Can't Help It" reached No. 20 in the UK, No. 47 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 7 on the US Hot Dance Club Play chart.
  • It was the final Bananarama single to feature Fahey. She left the group shortly after its release.

Lyrics

With your smile you're making plans

You've got the world right in the palm of your hands.
Everything you touch is gold but your future life is bought
and sold.
It seems to me that you've got it made
But you never show that you're afraid.
Now the voices in your head they make you scream
and drive you mad.

You're on a hot line to heaven
now you're all alone.
Riding on a hot line
...
© Bananarama - I Can't Help It. This is an excerpt, provided as citation under fair-use.
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