A-O-K

Album: TV (2021)
Charted: 34
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Songfacts®:

  • "A-O-K," meaning everything is in excellent order, is a US space-age expression. Here, Los Angeles singer-songwriter Tai Verdes uses the term to say no matter how life hits him, he will take it in stride.
  • Verdes starts off the song by channeling Jimi Hendrix:

    Doesn't this guitar sound so good?
    Mmm, mmm, mmm
    So sweet


    The rest of the tune is a pop song where the Southern California artist offers reassurance to a girl who has been left on the shelf. He playfully refers to a children's book along the way.

    I've had terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad days

    Verdes is referencing Judith Viorst's 1972 children's book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, which Disney adapted into a 2014 American family comedy film.
  • Verdes wrote the affirmative song with Martijn Konijnenburg (Nina June's "For Love"), Brian William Brundage (Celine Dion's "Lovers Never Die") and the track's producer, Adam Friedman (Mike Posner's "Be As You Are," The Black Eyed Peas' "Be Nice").
  • The phrase "A-OK" dates back to at least 1952, when it appeared in an advertisement by Midvac Steels that read "A-OK for tomorrow's missile demands."

    NASA public relations officer Lt. Col. John "Shorty" Powers popularized the term during astronaut Alan Shepard's Freedom 7 flight on May 5, 1961, the United States' first manned space flight.

    Powers misheard a simple "OK" from Shepard as "A-OK" and relayed it to reporters and radio listeners.

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