“Do You Wanna Hold Me” (1983) – Bow Wow Wow * Written by Matthew Ashman, Dave Barbarosa, Leigh Gorman, and Anabella Lwin * Produced by Mike Chapman * 45: “Do You Wanna Hold Me” / “What’s the Time (Hey Buddy)” * Label: RCA * Charts: UK (#47); Billboard Hot 100 (#77)
Bow Wow Wow started out as an agitpop project for Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren, who oversaw releases rife with record biz flouts, provocative album covers, and lurid lyrics. By 1982 the four young Londoners had coalesced into a more self-contained musical prospect. Teenage singer Annabella Lwin, with her soaring voice and pow wow dance moves, possessed a “too old to be so young” (and vice versa) persona that was as crucial as it was troubling; guitarist Matthew Ashman had a flair for whammy statement riffs on his big Gretsch guitars; Leigh Gorman summoned thunderstorms on bass; and heartthrob drummer Dave Barbarosa, with his red melting kit, was rock’s high chief of Burundi drums.
With “I Want Candy” (their hit Strangeloves cover), Bow Wow Wow found American audiences in the summer of ’82, via alternative radio formats and MTV. The video showed them surfside and looking convincingly So Cal, a half-clad conflux of mohawks, sandy hair, and brown skin. The following year they delivered an album called When the Going Gets Tough the Tough Get Going, produced by the customarily band-sensitive Mike Chapman, and it couldn’t have been any better of a showcase for the four members’ strengths. The leadoff single “Do You Wanna Hold Me” joshed around with Californiana and Sergio Mendes vocals, finding a spot of eternal exotic sunshine in the pop ether with nothing but the essentials of hooks, voices, guitar, bass and drums.
We’re dealing with pop music, though, where full-realizations so often wreak full dissolutions, and that happened with Bow Wow Wow. They didn’t make it past the big tour, with its ritualized tests of a band’s mutual commitment. The three males tried a short-lived hiphop rock vehicle called Chiefs of Relief, while Lwin dabbled in the dance market. Ashman died young, reunion configurations came to pass, and “Do You Wanna Hold Me” sounds ever more poignant in retrospect. Who else was more qualified to deliver the opening line of “children I wanna warn ya,” than Annabella Lwin, a seventeen-year-old who, by then, knew a thing or two about exploitation and “illusions” and whose big moment was moments from fading?