27. American Girls
Album: Just a Game (1979)
Writer: Gil Moore
Lead vocals: Gil Moore
Chart History: None
Video?: Yes
Lyrical category: Love/lust/breakup
What's a good way for a Canadian band to make inroads into the States? Why, write songs about how much they love Americans, of course.
"American Girls," from Just a Game, Triumph's third album (second in the U.S.), continues the "boogie rock" sound found on the first two Triumph albums but tightens it up and strengthens the melody. Said melody reminds me a bit of Bad Company's "Can't Get Enough," but instead of coming on all like "I take whatever I want, and baby, I want you," the polite Canadians sing "I won't even kiss her unless I'm gonna make her my wife." But what sets the song apart from standard contemporary AOR fare is the spacey intro and Rik Emmett's inventive guitar work, including a tease of the Star-Spangled Banner about halfway through the song.
In case you're wondering what bassist Mike Levine sounds like, the voice that says "gentlemen, please rise and salute American girls" is his.
"American Girls" was one of the first Triumph songs I heard, as it was one of the four Just a Game songs for which a performance video was filmed on a soundstage even though there were no 24-hour music channels in 1979. All four were in regular rotation when my MTV addiction began in 1982. Just a Game was a prescient album in other ways, as it was the first Triumph effort that was mostly free of the Zeppelin-isms that were a big part of their early career, and set the template for the sound that they would become known for. It became their commercial breakthrough and their first gold record (500,000 copies sold) in the U.S.
"American Girls" appeared pretty consistently in setlists between 1979 and early 1983, serving as the opener on the Just a Game tour and shifting to the second spot in the setlist after that. There is only one documented performance after 1983, at Maple Leaf Gardens in 1988. Toronto always got the special setlists.
Video (leotard alert):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEg0H_JePAI
Live version from Chicago, from the Studio Jam program in 1979:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzQVALDxlhM
Live version from Cleveland in 1981, broadcast for the King Biscuit Flower Hour:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_uFUXc7e7Y
Live version from Baltimore in 1982 (this concert sometimes aired late at night on MTV):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRwOtnl433s
At #26, what may be Triumph's only explicitly anti-war song.