Don’t Go Mistaking Paradise (For a Pair of Long Legs)

Here is the story of why I, ABSOLUTELY, had to stop watching this movie and immediately write this song. …

It All Started with One of My Favorite John Hughes Films

What a picture! I recently watched (after purchasing) one of my favorite — and perhaps most underrated — John Hughes films, “Some Kind of Wonderful” which is always a monumentally inspiring experience for me. I’ve seen the movie like a hundred times.

But, something about the story got my creative juices flowing this time, so much so that I had to stop the movie after this one scene and pick up the guitar and write! But more on that in a second…

Some Kind of Wonderful is a movie about a middle-class high school senior in Los Angeles (Keith), a hard-working, hands-filthy auto mechanic to earn and save money on the side, with a father pushing him to go to college (and be the first one to have advantages his dad never had), who is an artist and doesn’t want to attend college despite his father’s invasive push. He is a master painter.

His best friend all his life is a tomboy, who plays drums as her main interest, (known as “Watts” after Charlie Watts of Rolling Stones fame) and lothes the superficiality of the money class in late 80’s LA, a class which looks down on blue-collar workers and artists and they, as best friends, have spent all their time together and shared everything.

Though Watts is very sarcastic and cynical about life and the plastic people in LA with whom they attend high school, Keith feels like he wants to belong with them, thinking being one of them is the solution to not being looked down upon for having grease on his hands and being a painter instead of a collegiate genius.

But there is middle ground between these two juxtaposed, extremes of status:

Amanda Jones.

Keith is obsessed with her because she is beautiful and hangs with all the popular kids. He has an image in his head of her being a person with high standards, who is accustomed to money and the things that come with it. Amanda, however, lives in Keith’s neighborhood and is not wealthy like her friends and only “weathy by association and acceptance, having been “adopted” by them after, being new in school, dating the top “hottie” jock, “Hardy” who is a douchebag in the fullest sense, beyond rich snobbery and downright cruel. Amanda, dating him, is conflicted at heart because of how ruthless and mean he is to those “lower than him” but had sold out long ago and is doomed to live out her existence with the popular click.

Keith’s obsession with her progressively becomes a bone of contention in his relationship with Watts, to whom he talks about everything and as she does him about her tragic home life and how she only cares about her drums and him in this life. Being so close to him she begins to feel jealous, not superficially, but in a way that she is losing the person she cares about most in the world, to someone the likes of whom they both held in contempt all these years. Keith is portrayed by Hughes as a person who thinks that selling out and pandering to that world is the way to make something of himself when, in reality, he has more substance than all of them, something of which Watts is acutely and keenly aware. As such, Watts begins to show obvious feelings for him while she feels inferior to Amanda’s flawless beauty.

And, Watts isn’t far off with her assessment. It turns out not to be just a case of jealousy or denying happiness to her best friend, but a prediction of what inevitably happens when Keith gets set up to be taken down by Hardy and his henchmen and even sold out by Amanda.

There is one scene where a quintessential Watts is sitting discussing with Keith his plan to win over Amanda, and they sarcastically, if wittily, begin exchanging cliches about the situation, in classic Hughs style. Obviously, hurt by Keith’s departure from everything the two of them hold sacred and seeing he is falling for someone who will undoubtedly get him hurt, she says “Don’t go mistaking paradise for a pair of long legs” (a play on “para-dise” and “para-long”), indicating beauty is only skin deep, to which Keith answers, “Nothing ventured nothing gained”, to which Watts retorts, “once a fool, always a fool”.

That was the clincher. Her cautions to him were coming from a place of love she had never been able to express to Keith or, perhaps yourself. You can’t help but root for her to end up with him in the end. The witty cliches clinch it and the scene really makes her love for him come alive and obvious to everyone but Keith, who is clueless yet retains her as the most important person in his life, even above his obsession to get with Amanda Jones.

“… I’d rather not see you and have you think good things about me, than have you see me and hate me. Because, I can’t afford to have you hate me, Keith! The only things I care about in this goddamned life are me and my drums and you!”

A Crusher of a Soundtrack From John Hughes Extensive Taste in Music

John Hughes is notorious for his selection process of music for his movie soundtracks and some of my foremost influences as a songwriter, performer, audiophile AND listener were picked up from his repertoire of soundtrack genius. Not the least of which was is the song playing by the band in the above scene, “Turn to the Sky” by The March Violets” the epitome of music and genre from that era that really turned me on musically:

My Song In Tribute to Hughes’ Masterpiece

My song parallels Watts criticism (out of love she wishes she was strong enough to express) to Keith when he brings up the idea that he is “too shy to even ask her” which leaving unsaid her intense love for him, wondering why he doesn’t see it. This deeply relates to and parallels my own experience in life and was brought out in my song “One More” which is about this very subject, of knowing you are perfect for each other and the other person someone being oblivious to something right there glaring!

The song wrote itself in the ensuing 20-30 minutes and a couple of hours later I had a finished song, ready for production. And so it is, I give you the demo of “Don’t Go Mistaking Paradise”…

franksardella · Pair Of Long Legs

Don’t Go Mistaking Paradise (For a Pair of Long Legs)

I know you’re entirely too shy
to ask her what you want
and why you think you ache
and writhe inside
with expression
you can’t ever hide
But if you’d had a level head
you’d know the things
I left unsaid
And you’d never
go to bed knowing
I haven’t warned you!

Don’t go mistaking paradise
for a pair of long legs,
you can be with me tonight
Don’t go taking up too much time
on “no venture no gain”
and leave this chance behind
Maybe she’s some kind of wonderful
but she just isn’t right,
and maybe she’s just a phase
I’m right in your line of sight
so don’t go mistaking paradise
for a pair of long legs

All you do is stare
at her all day
with boggled eyes,
like you’re insane
While I stand by
and curse your name
with no clear right
to stake my claim
And when you finally
look my way,
all I can do is
look at you and say
the only words
that I can think
of to deny you