Roam

Album: Cosmic Thing (1989)
Charted: 17 3
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Songfacts®:

  • "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts," Mark Twain wrote. "Roam" is the musical equivalent of that quote; a call to go out and see the world.

    Released as the follow-up single to "Love Shack," it also climbed to #3 in the US, giving the B-52s two huge hits from the Cosmic Thing album.
  • The group's female singers, Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson, handle the vocals on this track, with Pierson taking the first verse and Wilson the second. On the chorus, bridge and third verse, they sing together. It's one of the few B-52s songs where Fred Schneider has nothing to do; when they played it live, he would hang back with a tambourine.
  • Robert Waldrop, a good friend of the band who did their Wild Planet album cover, wrote the lyric. The four band members are credited with writing the music.
  • Nile Rodgers produced this track. A consistent hitmaker, he helped the B-52s break out of a creative funk and expand their audience. The group's guitarist, Ricky Wilson, died in 1985. The following year, the last album they worked on with him, Bouncing off the Satellites, was released and flopped. The group fractured, returning in 1987 to come up with new material. Their first release was the song "Cosmic Thing," which Rodgers produced for the 1988 movie Earth Girls Are Easy. When they made the album, they had to start without Rodgers, who was wrapping up another project. This ended up giving the album even more creative energy, as they spent a month recording four songs with Don Was, including "Love Shack."
  • Like the "Love Shack" video, "Roam" was directed by Adam Bernstein. It also did very well on MTV, thanks to the photogenic leading ladies and curious compositing, showing the band in various exotic locales.

Comments: 7

  • Slade Barker from Dc - District Of ColumbiaMy dudes, the lyrics clearly state "without wings" and "without wheels." So no. Just no.
  • Aivas from Texas"Around the world" is a sex term, though usually involving the mouth not the hands (the trip "begins with a kiss"). And do we really need to explain rocking hip to hip?
  • Brautigan from Portland, OrIf you can't figure out that this song I'd about making out (hands are what are "roaming" here), then you're not very good at this.
  • Mark from Rossford, Oh (toledo)One of my favorite songs too. Also Fly1965 "A banana chasing a donut?" I seen that in the music video and was kinda wondering what that was all about myself.
  • Adam- : Kane from AustraliaIs about the holy see . A kiss on the ground.
  • Fly1965 from Aurora, ColoradoI swear this song is about something a little more erotic than travel. Hip to hip, rocking through the wilderness? A banana chasing a donut? LOL But okay. Whatever they say.
  • Chris from Germany One of my favorite songs by THE B52s
    awesome song.
    Was their second consecutive Top 3 Hit in the USA reaching #3. It gained GOLD certification for 500,000 sold copies

    i grew up with the band as a child and knowing them from FLINTSTONES Movie but their 1989 album COSMIC THING is great
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