Entered Top 40: May 25, 1985
1 week
Peaked at: 39
You’ve most certainly heard a song written by Boy Meets Girl, even if you don’t recall a Boy Meets Girl song. George Merrill & Shannon Rubicam were a pair of songwriters now best known for penning two Whitney Houston blockbusters: “How Will I Know” and “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me).” They released their own album as Boy Meets Girl in 1985. “Oh Girl” has some dissonance between a peppy arrangement and bitter lyrics; especially the chorus’s harsh “Do you understand?,” like Merrill is scolding a child or Mirandizing a suspect.
As “Oh Girl” was enjoying its week in The Show, Whitney Houston was preparing her world domination. Her “You Give Good Love” was sitting at #44; it’d become Houston’s first top-40 single the following week, and eventually reach #3. Houston’s version of Rubicam & Merrill’s “How Will I Know” would hit #1 the following February.
Two huge Whitney Houston songs de-prioritized Boy Meets Girl’s own recording career for a minute. Rubicam & Merrill had a kid, got married, and wrote some songs for Deniece Williams and Dolly Parton. They’d get a big hit of their own in 1988 with “Waiting for a Star to Fall” (#5), which they’d record themselves after Houston and Belinda Carlisle both passed on it. The pair eventually divorced, but continue to work together.
The Bottom Five 
Leave a comment