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I Know What Boys Like
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Date Aired
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December 2, 2020
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Running Time
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20:07
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Todd plays "I Know What Boys Like" on the piano.
THE WAITRESSES - I KNOW WHAT BOYS LIKE
A one-hit retrospective
Todd: Welcome to One Hit Wonderland where we take a look at bands and artists known for only one song, where again we have to ask: "What is a hit, exactly?"
Clip of The Waitresses - "I Know What Boys Like"
Patty Donahue: I know what boys like
Todd (VO): In the early '80s, as punk became new wave, the underground clubs were all dancin' to a snotty band from Ohio called The Waitresses. They knew what boys liked, they knew what guys wanted.
Todd: What they wanted was The Waitresses.
Patty: Boys like me
Todd (VO): What girls liked and wanted remained a mystery, at least...
Todd: ...until Good Charlotte came along.
Clip of Good Charlotte - "Girls & Boys"
Joel Madden: Girls don't like boys
Girls like cars and money
Todd: Hm. Yes, thank you, Good Charlotte.
Todd (VO): So that covers both ends of the entire spectrum of human desire. But are The Waitresses a One Hit Wonder at all? That's iffy to say.
Todd: I mean, they are according to several [Todd holds up book] books of one hit wonders I have where I get all my ideas.
Todd (VO): And the song was their only song to chart, it just didn't chart very high. That's probably not enough to call it a hit, except that it was such a fucking earworm that it's just lingered around for a pretty decent amount of time.
Clip of Glee version of the song
Lauren Zizes (Ashley Fink): I know what boys like
I know what guys want
I see them looking
Todd: Hm, yes, thank you Glee.
Todd (VO): That's not the only complicating factor. The Waitresses are a very weird case of one-hit-wonderdom, 'cause they're a one hit wonder whose one hit has...
Todd: ...changed, kind of?
Clip of NBC News coverage of Thanksgiving parade
Todd (VO): In fact, it should be well after Thanksgiving by the time I upload this so you should be hearing The Waitresses quite a bit...
Todd: ...right around now.
Live clip of "Christmas Wrapping"
The Waitresses: Merry Christmas, merry Christmas
Todd: To be honest, I'm a little confused about how to handle this one.
Clip of "I Know What Boys Like"
Todd (VO): This is the rare one hit wonder where people actually seem to disagree what their one hit actually is. [clip of interview with...] Or as band leader Chris Butler put it, they were a one hit wonder with two half-hits.
Todd: Okay, well officially, this is a review of the song that actually charted...
Todd (VO): ...with its perfectly of-the-moment video and its snarky, sassy attitude. But I promise you we will also talk about the holiday tune which has seemed to dwarf their actual hit in hindsight.
Todd: So, how did The Waitresses so thoroughly know what boys liked, yet not be liked enough to be the next killer band of the '80s? Let's find out.
Patty: Sucker, hm hm hm
I know what boys like
Before the hit
Todd: Okay, so it's hard to tell where the next underground music scene is going to develop out of. [shot of CBGB's] Often, it's in the big cities like New York, [shot of "Greetings from Chapel Hill' sign] sometimes they sprout out of little college towns like Chapel Hill. So it's not entirely crazy that some record executives thought the next big focal point of music [short clip of...] was gonna be... Akron, Ohio.
Live clip of Tin Huey - "I'm a Believer"
Todd (VO): The big underground sensation from Akron [clip of "Whip It" by...] was Devo. This is not Devo. This is one of a small number of local bands signed in Devo's wake, Tin Huey.
Michael Aylward: Then I saw her face
Todd (VO): They did a pretty rippin' cover of "I'm a Believer", [album cover for Contents Dislodged During Shipment fades up onscreen] and a bunch of other things that were a lot weirder and less commercial and which doomed them to an early death after one album.
Todd: But for a while, they were still potentially the next big thing...
Todd (VO): ...and during that time their guitarist Chris Butler, [video zooms in on him] which, I think is this guy over here maybe...
Todd: ...he came up with an idea for a song.
Clip of Chris' demo for the song over Easy Life album cover
Chris: I know what boys like
I know what guys want
Todd: The only problem was that it was written for a woman, [photo of Patty Donahue] so a college friend of his, Patty Donahue, volunteered to sing it...
Todd (VO): ...and during shows the guys would say "Hey...
Todd: ...we're no longer Tin Huey for this one song, we're now... The Waitresses."
Todd (VO): ...and they'd put on shirts that'd say "The Waitresses" and Patty would come up and sing the couple Waitress songs they had, and when Tin Huey went kaput, Chris moved to New York and tried shopping around his Waitress demos, and when he finally got a bite he was like "Yeah, The Waitresses, we're totally a real band!"
Todd: And then he bought a bus ticket to New York for Patty and [photo of the band's lineup] slapped together the rest of the band from scratch. [live clip of Television - "Foxhole"] Including Billy Ficca, the drummer from the [album cover for Marquee Moon fades up onscreen] legendary CBGB's band Television?! Wow.
Todd (VO): So by 1981, their single "I Know What Boys Like" was already being played in the punk clubs, and they were out on tour trying to make it into a real hit, and then their record label...
Todd: ...asked them to record something for a [shot of singing carolers] Christmas album. [back to Todd] Which, as Butler would tell you, does not make any sense. [shot of logo for...] They were on ZE Records...
Clip of Lydia Lunch - "Gloomy Sunday"
Todd (VO): ...which was an experimental indie label full of avant-garde art-funk weirdos.
Todd: Boy, I can't wait to hear a holly jolly Christmas carol from the [shot of cover of self-titled album by...] band Suicide! But, it's generally a good idea to do what your boss asks you to, so he was like, "Uh, yeah, I'll throw something together."
The... the hit? Kind of? I don't know
Todd: In 1981, ZE Records releases [shot of cover for...] A Christmas Record, one of the stranger Christmas albums you will ever hear. I actually liked it quite a lot. Here's the one by Suicide.
Clip of Suicide - "Hey Lord"
Alan Vega: Hey Lord
I wanna thank you
Todd (VO): That's exactly what I expected a Christmas song by Suicide to sound like. Much of the album sounds like this.
Todd: So, really, The Waitresses were kind of the odd ones out, in that [shot of single cover for...] their song, "Christmas Wrapping", actually sounded Christmassy.
Clip of "Christmas Wrapping"
Patty: "Bah, humbug!" no, that's too strong
'Cause it is my favourite holiday
Todd (VO): Adulthood has kind of sucked most of the fun out of Christmas for me.
Todd: The second I even see a Santa hat, I think: obligations, shopping, gifts, travel, money, stress... aggggh!
Todd (VO): So there's probably no Christmas song I truly enjoy anymore, which is a shame. Especially in this case 'cause "Christmas Wrapping"...
Todd: ...objectively slaps.
Snippet of sax riff
Todd (VO): It is a true modern classic.
Todd: It's got a killer...
Todd (VO): ...intro guitar riff, some nice funky bass and a truly awesome horn part. [clip of Chris Butler interview] Butler admits he threw it together out of scraps of unfinished songs he had lying around.
Todd: Which is very surprising to me because all the riffs already sound very Christmassy to me.
Todd (VO): It all sounds like rock versions of Christmas carols you already know, but...
Todd: ...nothing you can quite place.
Todd (VO): Like all great Christmas pop culture artifacts, "Christmas Wrapping" feels like it's...
Todd: ...always existed.
Clip of Chris Butler interview
Chris: It was supposed to be a toss-off favor to our label and... who knew?
Todd (VO): Butler himself says he was amazed how good it came out. It was just supposed to be a half-assed piece of holiday themed filler created completely out of obligation...
Todd: ...much like this video you are watching now. Merry Christmas from Todd in the Shadows, everyone.
Patty: Deck those halls, trim those trees
Raise up cups of Christmas cheer
Todd (VO): I'm not sure why it's called "Christmas Wrapping". [single cover for...] Kurtis Blow already had a song called "Christmas Rappin". [back to The Waitresses] So I guess you can also call this... rapping, kinda sorta.
Todd: It just kinda flows off the cuff, like it's a story being ad-libbed right at the moment.
Patty: Couldn't agree when we were both free
We tried, we said we'd keep in touch
Todd (VO): If I have to listen to any Christmas song, it would easily be this. It's just a very happy, holly-jolly song, but it's also one of the few Christmas songs that acknowledges how stressful everything is.
Todd: "Christmas Wrapping" is about a girl who just wants to finish her obligations and have a nice relaxing Christmas alone.
Todd (VO): And there's also a running thread in there about a year's worth of missed connections with this guy she met one time, and then when she pops into the grocery store to get some last-minute cranberries...
Todd: ...she finally runs into her guy...
Patty: In the line is that guy I've been chasing all year
Todd: ...and has a merry Christmas after all.
Todd (VO): It's, it's very reassuring to me honestly, it's a story about how...
Todd: ...all the stress of the holidays will be worth it in the end.
Chris: My girlfriend at the time said "Oh man, you are all over the radio!" And I thought "Finally, that stupid "I Know What Boys Like" song, after months of plugging it, must have broken through". And she said "Noooo... it's your Christmas song."
Todd (VO): It actually wasn't that big a hit. It charted in the UK the next year, which was nice and it hit a bunch of the bigger cities, which gave them a boost on their tour.
Todd: But it wasn't like this huge immediate smash like "All I Want for Christmas Is You" or anything like that.
Todd (VO): And besides, it's not like you can build a career out of Christmas music either.
Todd: Butler had his one song that he really believed in, and he was going to make it a hit.
The actual hit
Footage of the Waitresses playing a demo
Todd (VO): The early Waitress demos actually were kind of experimental, but the band quickly became something more accessible, and they didn't really fit with the oddballs on ZE Records anymore, so...
Todd: ...it made more sense when they jumped to a bigger label.
Todd (VO): They fit them up with some more promotion, a cool stylish video, and at last the song that Chris Butler thought was a sure hit took off.
Todd: [beat] Kind of.
Clip of "I Know What Boys Like"
Count in: 1, 2, 3, 4
Patty: I know what boys like
Todd (VO): "I Know What Boys Like" is, on first listen, barely a song. It sounds like they tried intentionally to do their first take as half-assedly as possible, and then intentionally didn't do a second take because that would also be too much effort.
Todd: It sounds like a joke at first.
Todd (VO): But a lot of the greatest songs in rock history are like that, the laziness kinda draws you in. By the time you hit the sax solo, you'll realize that there actually was a lot of effort put into capturing that tight groove...
Todd: ...but for the first thirty seconds you have to be like, "Seriously, this can't be for real".
Clips of Depeche Mode - "Just Can't Get Enough"; The Go-Go's - "Our Lips Are Sealed"; Foreigner - "Waiting for a Girl Like You"; Blondie - "Dreaming"; Blondie - "Heart of Glass", and The Waitresses - "I Know What Boys Like" live on Solid Gold
Todd (VO): Now, when you say "new wave" nowadays, the first thing people think of is synthesizers, but in the early '80s, it just meant anything that wasn't abrasive or sloppy enough to be punk, but clearly wasn't that slick corporate rock either. One of the first bands to get that label was Blondie, who started as a punk band at the beginning but also quickly went in a lot of fun new directions. The Waitresses got compared to Blondie a lot.
Todd: But in some ways, I feel like they were somehow kind of more punk than Blondie.
Clip of Blondie - "Picture This"
Todd (VO): Debbie Harry exuded coolness from her pores, but it was a very glamorous kind of cool, she didn't wake up like this.
Patty: I know what boys like
Todd (VO): But Patty just sounds so perfectly effortless, just bored of all your bullshit above everything.
Todd: She's not really a vocalist exactly, but she's a hell of a presence.
Todd (VO): So yeah, I love how she sings these lyrics. The lyrics themselves...
Todd: ...that's complicated.
Patty: I see them looking
Todd (VO): Like, we've [clip of Lizzo - "Juice"] got a lot of songs these days about being hot and sexy and attractive.
Todd: That's fine, but there's tons of songs like that.
Patty: I got my cat moves
Todd (VO): If that's all "I Know What Boys Like" was about, that'd be one thing, but...
Todd: ...it goes a lot further.
Patty: They want to touch me
I never let them
Todd (VO): It's mostly about toying with boys and their stupid emotions.
Patty: I laugh right at them
Todd: Like, I don't wanna use the word "tease", that's a, you know, it's a very ugly outdated concept.
Patty: I make them want me
I like to tease them
Todd: But there's not really another word for it.
Todd (VO): And the fact that this is sung by a woman but written by a dude...
Patty: Zippers and buttons
Fun to frustrate them
Todd (VO): ...uh, yeah...
Todd: ...this is kind of a minefield.
Patty: But you, you're special
I might let you
Todd: I don't even know if the word "cocktease" makes any sense anymore. Actually, why don't we do a quick primer on this?
Clips of various sex education films from the 1950s
Todd (VO): Things are very different now, but for boomers and Gen X-ers, there was an intense double standard for girls. Good girls did not have sex, and if you had sex a single time, you'd get a bad reputation. But if you didn't have sex, you'd get called a tease. You led these guys on, and then let them down, you heartless bitch.
Todd: I think we're done with all of that now, since all you kids are sharing [nude shot of woman on phone, with breasts and eyes blacked out] nude photos of each other on your Instasnaps or whatever the fuck, grumble grumble grumble. At the very least, it's a lot better now, and [shots of feminist marches] that's because of a big push over the decades, and slut-shaming reclaimed that word and made it into something positive. It's a lot harder to make "tease" positive, though.
Patty: Zippers and buttons
Fun to frustrate them
Todd (VO): Tease: a girl who tempts guys and then leaves them hanging just to be cruel. It's hard to put a positive spin on that because...
Todd: ...one, it's not a real thing.
Todd (VO): If a girl doesn't let you hit it, it probably wasn't because they were trying to hurt you personally.
Todd: And two, if they were, that'd be a pretty callous thing to do.
Todd (VO): So, naturally this song isn't even trying to be positive, it's actively malevolent.
Patty: Nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh
Nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh
Todd (VO): If you really wanted to, I think you could make the case that this is a misogynist song. It's from the point of view of a female character, as written by a guy, and she's a sadistic torturer of men.
Todd: On the other hand, you could also say that it's very empowering to women, because... she's a sadistic torturer of men!
Todd (VO): I mean, come on, right? For guys, there is the proud tradition of the heartbreaker song.
Clips of Dion - "The Wanderer"...
Dion: I kiss 'em and I love 'em 'cause to me they're all the same
...and Taio Cruz - "Break Your Heart"
Taio: I'm only gonna break break your break break your heart
Todd (VO): You know, "I'm a ladies man, I love 'em and leave 'em".
Todd: So, you know, that's a very anti-hero kind of song, so girls need their own version.
Todd (VO): And because it's the early '80s, a girl can only be a heartbreaker by not having sex, so the song's like "I string 'em along for fun, because it amuses me".
Patty: They get so angry
Like pouty children
Denied their candy
I laugh right at them
Todd (VO): Again, this was definitely written by a man. Having a bunch of horny, lovesick dudes following you around does not seem like very much fun to me. It sounds like it'd get tedious very quickly!
Todd: Okay, you know what boys like, but...
Todd (VO): ...why do you like this?
Todd: What are you getting out of it?!
Patty: I know what boys like
Todd (VO): Man, Patty just sells it. Butler was always quick to say that, "she's not my puppet or my mouthpiece, she's her own person." And Patty was like, "yeah, it's my performance, it's my experiences I bring to it."
Todd: And I just totally buy it from her.
Todd (VO): It's a total power fantasy of a song, and you listen to this and you absolutely think that she holds all the cards.
Todd: She's hot, you want her, and she doesn't want a thing from you.
Todd (VO): It is completely badass. She can squash any of these guys like bugs.
Patty: Sorry I teased you
I will... let you
Todd perks up
Patty: I really want to
You can trust me
Todd still surprised
Patty: Sucker (lol)
Todd: [beat] Well, that's just mean!
Todd (VO): I'm not saying I love this song, I'm not even sure I like this song. It's catchy in kinda the wrong ways, it's a little annoying.
Patty: Nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh
Nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh
Todd: [beat] Yeah, this part is probably a mistake.
Todd (VO): The song lives and dies off of Patty's flat affect and killer attitude, and it only goes so far.
Todd: I feel safe in saying that this song overplays its one trick; I'm not sure this is something I'd ever willingly choose to listen to.
Todd (VO): But whether or not I like this song, I respect this song. I completely get why Butler had so much faith in its success.
Todd: What a success it was. [shot of year-end Billboard Hot 100 from 1981] It made it all the way up... to #62.
Todd (VO): Not even in the Top 40.
Todd: That's not enough to sustain a career.
Patty: I feel sad now
The failed follow-up
Clip of Old Grey Whistle Test performance
Todd (VO): Butler says that, at this point, he realized that he was now basically a screenwriter for a really good actress, so maybe he should try a little harder and...
Todd: ...write something better for her than just her being a bitch for no reason.
Live performance of "No Guilt"
Todd (VO): So, he actually started talking to all the women he knew about their lives, trying to come up with ideas.
Todd: I think that's where "Christmas Wrapping" came out of. [shot of album cover for Wasn't Tomorrow Wonderful] And he brought that to the rest of the album. I actually think it came out pretty well.
Patty: I needed posters, so I bought 'em
I know the cost of stamps now
The 31st is when I pay the phone bill
Todd (VO): This is their follow-up single "No Guilt". It's kind of a breakup song, but it's also about the joy of what we now call...
Todd: [using air-quotes] ..."adulting".
Patty: I called the landlord when the water turned brown
Did you know I own some valuable records?
I've learned a lot since you've been gone
Todd (VO): Like, she's telling this ex, "You know, I guess I don't need you around, I'm a young single gal in the city, I'm...
Todd: ...handling my shit and living my life".
Patty: I'm sorry but I don't feel awful
It wasn't the end of the world
Todd (VO): I do have a weakness for second-wave ska, so I like this song a lot. But I will admit that there's not really much of a hook on it either. It's not really much of a single, I'm not surprised it didn't get big.
Todd: And having now listened to the album, I think it's actually pretty good.
Clip of Waitresses live footage with "Wasn't Tomorrow Wonderful" dubbed over
Todd (VO): I like the title track, "Wasn't Tomorrow Wonderful", a lot, too.
Patty: What's a girl to do
Born to shop? (No!) Pretty victories
Todd (VO): Uh, yeah, I'd recommend it. But none of it is, like, an immediate attention getter the way "I Know What Boys Like" was.
Todd: They picked up a decent cult following off the album but it wasn't really enough to keep them going.
Clip of "Make the Weather"
Patty: Go make the weather
Todd (VO): They put out a second album.
Patty: Go pull the stars closer in
Todd (VO): It...
Todd: ...basically tanked.
Clip of Square Pegs theme song, along with clip from the show
Patty: Square pegs, square pegs, square, square
Todd (VO): Their only real traction after the first hit was doing the theme song to Square Pegs, a fondly remembered but short lived show about nerdy high-school girls. Yes, that is a young Sarah Jessica Parker. After that, Butler admits that he and Patty didn't really get along, especially not after the misery of being a touring musician...
Todd: ...and after just a couple years the band fell apart and they never reunited.
Did they ever do anything else?
Todd: Oh, you know, they all went their separate ways.
Todd (VO): Their sax player, Mars Williams, joined The Psychedelic Furs. Their bass player, Tracy Wormworth, turned out to have a pretty long career as a side-woman; she played with the B-52's and Sting. Chris kept recording, he did some producing; mostly he went back to his avant-garde work. Patty moved behind the scenes as an A&R rep, until she [zoom-in of Patty holding a lit cigarette] tragically died of cancer at age 40 in 1996.
Todd: Sadly, I don't think she'd live to see how...
Clip of Kylie Minogue cover of "Christmas Wrapping"
Todd (VO): ..."Christmas Wrapping" kept slowly going from a one-off novelty into one of the more beloved Christmas songs of the last 40 years.
Todd: I knew it [shot of cover for Holidays In Dementia] from an old Dr. Demento comedy CD. But it's certainly not a novelty anymore.
Todd (VO): [clips of covers as they're mentioned] In 1998, both Save Ferris and The Spice Girls covered it, and I think that was the tipping point because since then everyone has had a go at it. The Donnas, Kylie Minogue, Belle and Sebastian, of course fucking Glee again.
Todd: "I Know What Boys Like" is at least a worthy song, but "Christmas Wrapping" is a great song.
Kylie: I'm gonna miss this one this year
Did they deserve better?
Todd: Yes!
Clip of...
Patty: I know what boys like
Todd (VO): The Waitresses were unique, I guess. They were doing something no-one else was doing. They were a hip new wave band for the ordinary gal.
Todd: They wrote one really great holiday song, and one unforgettably confident new wave single...
Todd (VO): ...and their back catalogue is better than you'd expect.
Todd: They know what Todd likes.
Patty: Nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh
Nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh nyeh
Closing Tag Song: "I Know What Boys Like" - Shampoo
THE END
"I Know What Boys Like" is owned by PolyGram Records
This video is owned by me
THANK YOU TO THE LOYAL PATRONS!!