Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut

by Rob Sheffield

  Does anybody know or care what DD themselves want? Does anybody worry that they are not finding artistic fulfillment? Does anyone wonder what they are “really like” or how they “really feel” in everyday life? Maybe Simon likes to slip into a terry-cloth robe and read romance novels in the tub. Maybe John roots for the Pittsburgh Penguins. Maybe Nick sneaks into the basement and picks up an acoustic guitar to play Bob Dylan songs. Who cares? Nobody. Not even me.

  In general, girls do not really care what goes on in Simon’s brain. They don’t want him sincere or confessional. I love the tender ballad “Save a Prayer,” so whenever it comes on the car radio, I turn it up. But my wife, Ally, just snickers, “Sensitive DD!” Girls do not like “Save a Prayer” as much as they like “Hungry Like the Wolf.” They do not want a Simon who feels adult emotions; they want him to ooze vanity and lechery. So “Save a Prayer” is now an obscure deep cut, while “Hungry Like the Wolf ” is a song known to every human being on planet Earth.

  Why? Don’t ask me. I love “Save a Prayer.” I’m a boy.

  “All She Wants Is.” A Top 40 hit in 1989. It’s traditional for a band to conclude their greatest-hits album by sticking on some crap new song, as a way of saying “we’re still working” or “we do weddings, parties, anything.” But Duran Duran didn’t have room to do this, because they were still scoring hits. And they weren’t finished yet.

  Ally is the girl I love, so she is the girl I talk to about Duran Duran. When we are out dancing at our favorite sleazy rock bar and “Rio” comes on, as it always does, she and I are the “two of a billion stars” Simon is singing about. We make sure to lock eyes when that line comes around and sing it to each other. Since Ally’s an astrophysicist, she knows all about stars and quasars and tidal debris and accreted satellite material. Her universe is such a big place, full of so many galaxies—100 billion of them, with 100 billion stars apiece, which means 10 to the 22nd power stars—that it’s terrifying to think of the odds that we found each other. We want to freeze the perfect moment, hold on to it, at least long enough to understand it. But it dances on with us or without us, so we jump in and try to keep up. The universe is expanding, and we are just two of a billion stars.

  For Catholics, the decade is part of the rosary. There are five decades in a rosary, ten Hail Marys in a decade, each devoted to a mystery—the Joyful Mysteries, the Sorrowful Mysteries, the Glorious Mysteries. It goes around in a loop. So “All She Wants Is” brings us back around to where the decade started: a girl and what she wants. That’s where the mystery begins.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to everybody who has helped me. My genius editor Carrie Thornton has provided the spirit of Depeche Mode. My genius agent Daniel Greenberg has provided the spirit of Run-DMC. I am savagely grateful to all my friends, some of whom might find their voices or stories mangled by memory in this book. Names have been changed, either to protect privacy or because the radio was on and I wasn’t really paying attention while you were talking. Cheers to those who remember things differently—as Paul Westerberg would say, your guess is more or less as bad as mine.

  All love to my family, especially my mom and dad—Bob and Mary Sheffield—for teaching me about love and music and everything else. My sisters are my heroes: the inspirational Ann Sheffield, the dynamic Tracey Mackey, the extraordinary Caroline Hanlon. When Tracey read the Hall & Oates chapter, she wrote me: “You STILL got the Private Eyes clapping wrong! It’s clap, THEN clap-clap. You are such a boy!” So it’s official: I still can’t clap to “Private Eyes.” But bless my sisters for getting me this close.

  Thanks to my sisters’ flawless taste in men, I have two brothers, Bryant Mackey and John Hanlon, and over the past ten years we have met eight of the planet’s all-time coolest people: Charlie, Sarah, Allison, David, Sydney, Jackie, Mallory and Maggie. Since a couple of these people plan to marry Taylor Swift when they grow up, let me thank Taylor in advance. Huge love to Donna, Joe, Sean and Jake Needham; Tony and Shirley Viera; Jonathan, Karianne, Ashley and Amber Polak, most of whom can beat me at Wii Just Dance.

  Thank you to all the amazing people at Dutton, especially Brian Tart, Lily Kosner, Christine Ball, Julia Gilroy, Amanda Walker and Tala Oszkay. Gregg Kulick, who designed the cover of this book as well as Love Is a Mix Tape, is a brilliant man of vision, as you can see for yourself. Crazy snaps to Jay Sones, Maria Elias and Monika Verma.

  Thanks to everyone at Rolling Stone, especially the mighty Will Dana, who provided invaluable editorial illumination and taught me to appreciate Side 2 of Tattoo You, Sean Woods, Caryn Ganz, Alison Weinflash, Nathan Brackett, Jason Fine, Kevin O’Donnell, Tom Walsh, Nicole Frehsee, Jonathan Ringen, Brian Hiatt, Christian Hoard, Michael Endelman, Coco McPherson, Erica Futterman, David Fricke and Andy Greene, with a special tip of the cap and a “Machine Gun” air-guitar solo to Jann Wenner.

  To paraphrase Oran “Juice” Jones, me without my friends would be like cornflakes without the milk. Gavin Edwards taped me Prince’s Sign O’ the Times in 1987 and provided beyond-valiant editorial help. Joe Levy played me R.E.M.’s Out of Time over the phone in 1991 and brought the noise as an editorial samurai lord. These two have been music gurus and blood brothers to me since the ’80s. I am always grateful to Chuck Klosterman, who pointed out that I invariably blather about Paul McCartney after the third beer. Sean Howe forced me to reappraise the Level 42 legacy. Jenny Eliscu makes everything louder.

  For various forms of assistance with this book, including but not limited to the correct spelling of “hypotenuse,” I bow to Darcey Steinke, Melissa Maerz, Joe Gross, Marc Spitz, Melissa Eltringham, Lizzy Goodman, Sasha Frere-Jones, Alex Pappademas, Marc Weidenbaum, Jen Sudul Edwards, Jeffrey Stock, Jennie Boddy, Niki Kanodia, Nils Bernstein, Phoebe Reilly, Flynn Monks, Asif Ahmed, Tyler Magill, Ivan Kreilkamp, Elizabeth Webster, Lisa Miller, Isabelle George Rosett, Jessica Hopper, Karl Precoda, Nancy Whang, Donata Dabrowska, Robert Christgau, Alfred Soto, Greil Marcus, Dave Rimmer, John Leland, Tom Nawrocki, Tracey Pepper, Heather Rosett, Maureen Callahan, Maria Falgoust, Sarah Wilson and WTJU. Barak Rosenbloom got me living high in the dirty business of ice cream. Thanks to everybody at Enid’s, where most of this book was written, and the Hold Steady, who I was usually listening to. Thanks to whoever typed in the lyrics to Def Leppard’s “Photograph” on the Sing Sing karaoke machine because you give me the joy of hearing Fred and Melissa debate whether it’s “down to the rock-and-roll clown” or “bow to the rock-and-roll crown.” (Still arguing about Def Leppard after fifteen years of marriage! An inspiration to us all.) Thanks to the musicians in this book, too. They all deserve big, wet sloppy kisses, except I just flossed.

  Most of all, eternal love and gratitude to my lovecat bride, Ally, for her inspiration, her support and making sure that whenever Ashford & Simpson come on the speakers while we’re waiting in line at the airport, I will get to sing along with her. Solid as a rock.