Private Eyes

The Awesome World of Yacht Rock

John Oates had three expressions. This one was called “suspicious of a woman”.

Last year I got sucked into a Spotify channel called “Yacht Rock”.

This genre can be quite insidious because it’s often not that great, but then when you start thinking a bit more deeply about it; it’s quite pure.

It seems to be a musical genre that is held together by lyrics about hook-ups, but not in a way that is sleazy. It’s an “I hope I can hook up” vibe rather than predatory. “I hope I can make love to you very soon because that other guy treated you real bad but I’m not like that”.

For example, take Hall & Oates.

I worked out that basically every lyric is about Daryl Hall either trying to get with a girl, or actually getting with a girl or spying on girls (for research so he knows how to treat them right), or just thinking about girls in a generalised way.

It’s all really well put together, and Daryl has a great set of pipes for sure.

When you then flick over to the music videos, you get pretty much the same music video, over and over, the only exception being ‘Rich Girl’, where Daryl is dressed like a pimp, and this time John looks moderately functional. Someone has smeared the camera lens with Vaseline to make the sentiment really pop.

In every other video, John is kind of like the band mascot but with a guitar. His only role is to look surprised or bewildered, depending on what’s happening in the lyrics at the time.

John Oates seen here in the letter O trying to dance.

The “surprised” expression sometimes happens at the beginning of his own guitar solo.

These guys met one night while fleeing a gang shootout in Philly, both running into a nearby elevator, and thus, elevator music was born.

Will Hall ever let up on Oates? Lift the restraining order, Daryl.

“Lift the restraining order, Daryl” is as iconic a statement as “Open the pod bay doors, Hal”, when you think about it.