After yesterday's funky Janelle Monáe number about bisexuality, let's turn back the clock to 1980, and a different disco funk pop hit from an Australian who used a cheeky geographical metaphor. Peter Allen, who for later audiences somewhat resembles the actor Kelsey Grammer from the TV sitcom Frasier, enjoyed peak career at this time, and this title track from his album was written by Tom Keane and Canadian producer David Foster, who worked with a host of other stars including Chaka Khan Alice Cooper, Christina Aguilera, Donna Summer, Olivia Newton-John, Madonna, Mary J. Blige, Michael Jackson, and Barbra Streisand.
Why do you have to pick one indeed? Cheesy pop, or cheesier pop? The choice between LA and New York of course is really about what gender you choose to sleep with, and this funk-pop number revels in both, but also reveals which way Allen went, from having been married to Liza Minnelli until 1974, after which, to no great surprise, he came out. He then began to enjoy gay lifestyle in California until he died from AIDS-related cancer in 1992. However, his legacy lives on in the biographical musical The Boy From Oz, which hit Broadway in 2003 with Wolverine acting star Hugh Jackman in the title role.
You used to live in New York City
Then you moved to L.A
But you still miss the streets
Where you used to play
So you hurry on back there
Even leave your pool and your car
Only to find you no longer belong
Fool, don't you know what you are
Yeah, hit the streets at midnight
Still dancing after dawn
But something seems to be missing
Just what are you running from
Do you like your love in the dark
Or laid out in the sun?
When you can't make up your mind
Don't you know what you've become
Bi-coastal, miss the natural speed of the city
Bi-coastal, California's fine if you're pretty
You can always hear me singing
Oh, say can you see?
From the towers of Manhattan
To the hills of Beverly
All those girls on TV movies
All those boys on Broadway
When you can't make up your mind
You know you go either way
Bi-coastal, miss the natural speed of the city
Bi-coastal, California's fine if you're pretty, oh yeah
Bi-coastal, miss the natural speed of the city, oh yeah, yeah
Bi-coastal, California's fine if you're pretty
Bi-coastal, when both are so much fun
Tell me why do you have to pick, why do you have to pick
Why do you have to pick one?
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