About the time this song came out, early 1981, my Mom worked in a factory as a seamstress. She'd save her lunch break for picking me up at the end of my Catholic elementary school day (I'd just turned 10 the previous December) and we'd walk the three or four blocks to the factory so she could finish her shift. I'd hang out, either in the crappy "break room" (more of a walk-in closet where the gals who worked there kept their coats, though there was enough room for a couch) or on the window seat near my Mom's work space, and apply myself to my homework (blah). Numerous Portuguese and Italian immigrant women worked there, of which my Mom is the former. One of the latter had a little radio, upon which the hits of the day blared tinnily. Late one afternoon, Rapture came on. Stricken by the jangly opening, I raised my eyes from my textbook and looked out the large, grimy window into the white glare of the overcast sky, transported. To where, I couldn't have said. I just felt myself floating far away from the roaring sewing machines and raucous, multilingual babble and into a night-time world lit up by neon and strobe lights. Though I'd not have been able to articulate it then, it was the first time I understood what it meant to feel sexy. It was, like, whoa.
Apart from the yummy synth groove of this tune, I dig and find comfort in the lyrics which promise that "...love is only a smile away, getting so much closer to me, every day." Yeah, man. Lay it on me. I could use some righteous lovin' over here, bring it.
If I wasn't clear enough just now, let me reiterate, "...right now, let me take you by the hand; right now, put your lips at my command; right now, fly me off to lovers' land." This snazzy cover by a side-project of Siouxsie and the Banshees members puts a spring in my step and zip in my...well, you know. Let's just say I "...feel it coast to coast." ;-)
