Joe Jackson: Is She Really Going Out With Him -On TOTP 8/9/79 (My "Stereo Studio Sound" Re-Edit)

Joe Jackson: Is She Really Going Out With Him - On Top Of The Pops August 9, 1979 (My "Stereo Studio Sound" Re-Edit)Show more

"Is She Really Going Out with Him?" is a song written and performed by British musician Joe Jackson. It was released in October 1978 as his debut single and was later included on Jackson's debut album, Look Sharp! The track was one of the first Jackson recorded with his new backing band, a band he would perform with for his first three albums. Written as a humorous commentary on women dating unattractive men, the song contains a prominent bass line and a chorus praised by critics as memorable. Jackson has since stated that the song's reputation for being angry was untrue.

On its initial release, the single was commercially unsuccessful and failed to chart. Two follow-up singles, "Sunday Papers" and "One More Time", were also chart failures. However, when "Is She Really Going Out with Him?" was re-released in 1979 after Jackson's reputation and new wave music grew in popularity, the single saw more attention and became a chart success. This second release reached the top 20 in the UK and top 30 in the US, becoming one of Jackson's highest charting singles worldwide.

Since then, the song has been praised as one of Jackson's greatest and most famous and has been covered by multiple artists. The song has appeared on several of Jackson's compilation albums and remains a staple of Jackson's live set list. A live a cappella version released in 1988 was a top five single in the Netherlands. It has been described as one of the classics of the new wave genre, though Jackson does not consider it his best song.

"Is She Really Going Out with Him?" was one of the first songs Joe Jackson recorded with the Joe Jackson Band, which included bassist Graham Maby, guitarist Gary Sanford, and drummer Dave Houghton. The song was immediately popular with the band; Jackson recalled in his autobiography, "Everyone liked it. It was catchy, they said, and had the makings of a hit. I wouldn't know a hit, I protested, from a hole in my head. I liked all my songs, and if I'd written a hit it was by accident. But I appreciated the enthusiasm, and something else, too: a growing feeling that I was up to something". The final version of the song was recorded with American producer David Kershenbaum in August 1978 after Jackson was signed to A&M Records.[3]

According to Jackson, the song originated from when he heard the title. Jackson claimed that he had first heard it on a song by the Damned, who had gotten it from the Shangri-Las' song, "Leader of the Pack". From there, he came up with the basis for lyrics for "a funny little song about watching couples and wondering what the girls could possibly see in the guys". Jackson recalled, "It wasn't based on a specific incident or anything like that ... I tried to write a funny song around that title, and that’s about all there was to it, really". Though the song was written to be comical, it has been interpreted by some critics as angry, earning Jackson the tag of "angry young man". He said of the song's origins in an interview:

I heard that phrase somewhere and I thought that could be a kind of funny song about gorgeous girls going out with monsters. It just started from there. It was just a funny song, or supposed to be funny. It was a great surprise to me when some people interpreted it as being angry.
— Joe Jackson, Songfacts, 2012

In another interview, Jackson recalled another incident where the lyrics to the song were misinterpreted. He explained that he was accused of racism by a black man because of the song's opening lyric "Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street", which the man had thought was about black men dating white women. Jackson concluded, "And no matter what I said he wouldn't believe me, and as far as he was concerned that was what it was. So, I mean, really, what can you do? (Laughs) I always feel like my lyrics are very clear, but what can I say?"