Everyone knows one line of lyrics from this song, and I mean everyone: “If you like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain”. It’s something you know purely through pop culture osmosis. Whether or not you’ve actually listened to the full song doesn’t matter, you will have encountered a reference at some point in life to drinking rum & coconut drinks while a light tropical rain catches you off guard.
I never had a reason to listen to this song until it appeared on the soundtrack to Guardians Of The Galaxy, and I bought a copy of it. Suddenly this song became an unintended part of my life.
At first the only appeal was irritating my wife by turning it up a little too loud in the car, but after several listens I became invested in the story. You see, like the greatest Country & Western ballads or traditional Folk songs this too tells an engrossing tale.
We’re introduced to our main character, who I’ll call The Husband. He’s in a marriage that is functioning but no longer has any erotic passion in it. While laying in his suburban home one night reading the newspaper next to his slumbering wife he wanders into the personals section and sees something that catches his eye. A woman is looking for a man who not only likes pina coladas, but also getting caught in the rain and then porking at midnight on sand dunes. She also requests that he have “half a brain” and dislike yoga.
Our protagonist is entranced by the exotic possibilities dangling before him, and in a moment of arousal forgets about his sleeping wife, and quickly rushes to answer the personal ad. He acknowledges that he’s “nobody’s poet” but writes out a response agreeing to her stipulations while also letting her know with the utmost emphasis that he is “INTO CHAMPAGNE”. He also feels that it’s important she’s aware that he is not into health food. Just in case, ya know?
He sets a time and place where they can escape their mutually ho-hum existences: The next day at O’Malley’s bar around noon.
He arrives and presumably orders the largest pina colada on the menu to emphasize his presence amongst all the other lonely men. She enters and he recognizes her instantly: IT’S HIS WIFE! She sits down and they share a chuckle.
Apparently the chrushing reality that the both of them are in a loveless union and are resorting to daytime affairs passes by and instead of voicing their shared years of mutual misery aloud The Husband breaks the silence by acknowledging that he never knew his wife liked pina coladas (or the rain, or champagne, or the ocean, or even making love at midnight, for that matter).
As the song closes out we’re left with the impression that this exercise in gonzo couples therapy has made them stronger; that they’re about to embark on a new life of drinking too much and fucking in public places. I, on the other hand, can’t help but wonder where this story goes. Obviously they get divorced. Eventually. No amount of rum and sand up ones asshole can keep two people who dislike each other together. Let’s face the truth: these characters will inevitably become bored again and unless they find another theme (red wine and snow drift blow jobs?) this marriage will fully dissolve.
Then there’s the job of assigning blame, which is in itself a circular “who-dun-it”. The Husband is inspired (unknowingly) by the Wife’s ad, so is the Wife more at fault even though the Husband set the rendezvous? Hypothetically, if the Husband didn’t answer she would’ve presumably been slurping those dranks on those dunes with some other guys penis. Then again, both acted independently and assumed that they'd be sexually involved with a stranger at some point when they entered into O'Malley's bar.
And here I am analyzing this song again. This song, which was incidentally the last number one hit of the 1970’s, barely skates around the novelty genre. It lives in that same magical world where people take Jimmy Buffet’s immortal classic “Cheeseburger In Paradise” seriously. It’s simultaneously a "sad-dad jam" replete with a solid Yacht Rock groove, and also the logical companion piece to “Disco Duck”.
Although, I must admit that I do like champagne, pina coladas, and the rain, as well as not being into yoga or health food, so in the end what does any of this analysis mean?
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