Toto's "Rosanna"

At first my flatmate Brian thought that I meant another song, "Joanna" by Kool & the Gang, which he had me convinced for a second was also titled "Rosanna." To my delight, he even sang a little snippet of the version in his head: "Ro-saaa-naa / I / love yoooou / You're the one / The one for meee." However much I loved his little rendition (and it reminded me that I should seek out that song too), I needed to get Toto out of my head and into my speakers. After a little bit of digging, I found the song I was chattering about and we listened to it in glee. Toto did a great job in crafting a great track - this song is great, it's got many different movements from opening with a drum roll to when the horns kick in; Even the strange swirly break of cascading keyboards (that implies a scene with outerspace and unicorns) has a purpose into bringing us to the song's end. This song was written for Rosanna Arquette, who was dating Toto's Steve Lukather. I never bothered to listen too closely to what this song is about, but it sounds romantic: "Not quite a year / Since you went away / Rosanna, yeah / Now she's gone and I have to say / Meet you all the way / Meet you all the way / Rosanna, yeah!" Blah blah, something about how he never thought a girl like her could make him feel so sad and the things he wishes and losing her feeling so bad. The lyrical content is unimportant to the sentiment, though the vocals provide an important layer to the songs musicality. The dude could be singing "watermelon cantaloupe" and I would still be endeared.

I saw a glimpse of Rosanna Arquette doing a bad something-European accent in "The Whole Nine Yards" with Matthew Perry and Bruce Willis - a bad movie that triggered memories of this good song. How far we've fallen since "Desperately Seeking Susan!" Speaking of DSS - I finally caught the episode of Will & Grace that Madonna guest starred in. That woman is fabulous. She plays this office manager for those "That's What i Call Music" CDs in "the music industry." Hilarious. Her hair didn't move once.