Dave's Song of the Day
Hot Child in the City – Nick Gilder
Thursday song of the day: Today’s song was inspired by the singer seeing underage prostitutes walking the streets.
Nick Gilder was the singer for Canadian glam band Sweeney Todd, who had a 1975 #1 hit in Canada with the song
Roxy Roller. He later left the band for a solo career and was replaced by a 15-year old named Bryan Adams, who went on to much bigger solo success.
Gilder released his first album,
You Know Who You Are, in 1977. It did not chart. The following year, he released his second solo album,
City Nights. That album contained the song
Hot Child in the City, which was released as a single and became a huge hit.
Most people assume that the song refers to a striking young woman making her way through the city. She catches the singer’s eye and possibly a romance ensues. The use of “child” can be interpreted as hyperbole. The assumption is that the woman in the song is at least 18 years old, and more likely in her early 20s. This, however, is not the case.
Gilder wrote
Hot Child in the City after he moved from Vancouver to Los Angeles and noticed prostitutes on the streets of Hollywood. Some of them were obviously underage, and he was moved to write a song about it. Obviously writing it as a straightforward tale of teenage prostitutes would not make a very good pop song, so he kept it vague, and wrote it from the point of view of one of the creepy customers. The result was a song that could be interpreted innocently as just describing a beautiful woman and not specifically an underage hooker. He explains, “I’ve seen a lot of young girls, 15 and 16, walking down Hollywood Boulevard with their pimps. Their home environment drove them to distraction so they ran away, only to be trapped by something even worse. It hurts to see that so I tried writing from the perspective of a lecher – in the guise of an innocent pop song.”
Hot Child in the City rose to #1 on the
Billboard Hot 100 chart and was certified as a Platinum single, with sales of over 2 million copies. It was quite a long stretch between when the record was released and when it topped the charts. The
Billboard Book of #1 Hits claims that it holds the record for longest period between release and attaining #1 status. The record was released on June 12th, 1978 and finally reached #1 on the Hot 100 on October 28th, 1978, a period of roughly four and a half months.
Gilder never again had a Top 40 hit in the United States, although he did chart at #44 with another song from the
City Nights album in December 1978, when he followed up his big hit with the song
Here Comes the Night. He continued to record afterward, but had more success as a songwriter for other artists, including Bette Midler, Pat Benatar, and Joe Cocker. His biggest hit as a writer for others came in 1983, when Scandal featuring Patty Smyth had a #7 hit with
The Warrior.
In 2000, he re-formed Sweeney Todd and continues to work with the band today.
Single release, 1978
Lip-synched performance on the Dutch TV show
Top Pop, 1978
Tomorrow: Your looks are laughable
