Quick Hit
“Emma”, Hot Chocolate, 1974
Most people know this band for its disco hits “Everyone’s a Winner” and “You Sexy Thing”, but there was more to this British band than meets the eye.
“Emma” has always been my favourite Hot Chocolate song. Originally I loved the first few funky bars of the song, it was infectious. When I listened a bit closer I started to understand what it was really about.
The reason this brilliant song only got modest radio play was it dealt with a taboo subject – suicide. People did not really want to hear about it. In the‘70’s it seemed to me it was very real. I knew kids in school that committed suicide. Why did people not talk about this more?
Pat Boone had done “Moody River” in 1961 about it but it really was not a topic covered in music. Later in the seventies ‘Queen’ did “Don’t Try Suicide”, and the ‘Police’ did “Can’t Stand Losing You”, about a teenager who commits suicide after losing his girlfriend. Neither of these versions had the same intimate treatment of the subject that “Emma” did - “Emma” was “a star in everyone’s eyes” and yet was found “still and cold upon the bed”. Very real. Very painful, yet somehow beautifully done. There was a message there too – The most beautiful people in the world do not always succeed all the time.
