Norm's Top 10 Bananarama songs - #10: 'Hotline To Heaven'

Over the new few weeks I will be counting down my Top 10 Bananarama songs EVER! This will no doubt be extremely hard as my favourite songs change all the time! So here we go, starting with #10...


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 hotline to heaven
Now you're all alone
Riding on a hotline to heaven
Standing on your own

Staring eyes as cold as stone
A wandering figure that stands alone
Reaching out you cry for help
Once a man but now you're just a shell
You make a deal, you make a grade
But you're heading for an early grave
You got to find it, got to try
Something special to get you high

You're on a hotline to heaven
Now you're all alone
Riding on a hotline to heaven
Standing on your own

You're on a hotline to heaven
(Going up without me baby, I won't let you drive me crazy)
Now you're all alone
Riding on a hotline to heaven
(Going up without me baby, I won't let you drive me crazy)
Standing on your own

It seems to me that you've got it made
But you're heading for an early grave
A thousand voices in your head
Make you scream and drive you mad

You're on a hotline to heaven
Now you're all alone
Riding on a hotline to heaven
Standing on your own

You're on a hotline to heaven
(Going up without me baby, I won't let you drive me crazy)
Now you're all alone
Riding on a hotline to heaven
(Going up without me baby, I won't let you drive me crazy)
Standing on your own
(Written by Dallin/Fahey/Woodward/Jolley/Swain)

Taken from the girls' eponymous second album, this was the fourth single to be released and went a dismal No.58 in the charts. It dealt with drug abuse, a topic they would approach again on their following album 'True Confessions' with the song 'Hooked On Love'. At this time the girls had made a conscious decision to tackle more serious, grown-up topics in their songwriting in a bid to be taken seriously by their critics who had slated them in the music press. Unfortunately this didn't bode well with the music-buying public and this was one of a number of successive flops. Two singles later they would turn to the Stock Aitken and Waterman camp and would never look back...