Frankie Says Blog!
In chapter 20 of Mix Tapes &Stuff, (link below) Orville sneaks back to school at night. When he sneaks around the parking lot, he passes cars with Frankie Says Relax bumper stickers.
What is the message of the bumper stickers?
The saying was a fad from around 1984 in America. Here's where it came from.
In 1983 the band Frankie Goes to Hollywood released the song Relax. This song would become an international best selling song.
Frankie's Goes to Hollywood formed in 1980 in England. They toured England and put out an album of songs in 1983. Their first album would contain their only American successes.
When the promotional video for Relax was released in England, it featured scenes of adult clubs and risqué dancing, so it was banned in a lot of places. According to stories I heard at the time, the video Americans saw was the sixth video made. The link below is to a version of the video that I don't remember, but it's not one of the risqué versions.
The lyrics and simple and repeat a lot. There is the line, "when you want come," repeated nine times (thank you Lyrics A-Z). That didn't mean when you show up at someone's doorstep. It wasn't difficult to miss the meanings.
Even so, the song became a number 1 song in ten countries including Spain, Switzerland, Italy and Isreal.
The song begat an industry of memorabilia, such as tee-shirts and stickers. They all said Frankie Says Relax.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood would release a second single off the same album. The song Two Tribes was about nuclear war. How's that for a switch?
Here is a link to Mix Tapes and Stuff-available on Amazon.com. The second link is to a video for Relax.
There are four screens of videos for Relax. There are remixed versions, live versions and banned versions.