Peter Allen, who shares my actual birthday, has been a source of joyous campy affection in our family for years with his pelvic thrusting showmanship and his spandex and glitter flair. His life story, which tragically ended in an early death through complications with AIDS, was made into the Hugh Jackman-fronted Broadway hit, the Boy from Oz.
In his time he was known as an expert song writer and this little number he co-penned with Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager and Christopher Cross was his most enduring hit known for it's odd line “if you get caught between the moon and New York City“. A line that I still can remember being baffled by as I kid. I was in a hotel with my sister, it may have even been in New York, and the song was playing on the radio. The images it conjured were puzzling and numerous, but not once did I associate this song with a petite drunken rich man with a penchant for working class women.
Still, this was the song chosen for the film Arthur and they all rocketed to mega stardom on a road paved with egos, awards, limousines, and possibly cocaine.
But what do you think?