Amboy Dukes – "You Talk Sunshine, I Breathe Fire" (1968)

What you gonna do 

When the bubble bursts?

On July 22 at 6:00 am, my very pregnant daughter Sarah woke up and immediately knew it was time to eight, skate, and donate to the hospital before her bubble burst and my first grandson fell out.

So she and husband drove to the hospital (which is twenty minutes away if all goes well), dealt with the usual I-need-to-see-your-insurance-card hospital bureaucrats, and still got to a labor and delivery suite in time – and I mean just in time – for Sarah to deliver her son Jack at 7:10 am.

My grandson Jack on the day he was born

There was no time for an epidural anesthetic to be administered to Sarah, so she had to tough it out au naturel.

But she handled the whole thing – as she had handled her entire pregnancy – with total aplomb.  In fact, I think it’s fair to say that Sarah is about the aplombest new mother you ever did see.

I for one was very happy at Sarah and Jack’s timing because I was about to leave town and drive to Cape Cod for my annual summer vacation.  My grandson’s birth delayed my departure by a few hours, but I didn’t complain a bit.  (My mother’s comment on my decision to hit the road: “How could you leave that pretty little boy?”)

The three-week-old Jack

I thought long and hard about what song to feature in this very important 2 or 3 lines.

I could have featured one of the 89 songs I found with “Jack” in the title: e.g., Billy Joel’s “Captain Jack,” The Who’s “Happy Jack,” Ray Charles’s “Hit the Road, Jack,” John Mellencamp’s “Jack and Diane,” or the Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” to name just a few.

Another option would have been to feature a song by a musician who shared Jack’s July 22 birthday: e.g., George Clinton, Bobby Sherman, or Don Henley.

The lyrics of “You Talk Sunshine, I Breathe Fire” are very marginally related to the content of today’s 2 or 3 lines, but that’s enough given what a killer song it is.

* * * * *

The Amboy Dukes are best-known for their 1968 hit, “Journey to the Center of the Mind.”  It was what I like to call a stick of dynamite.

The band’s follow-up single, “You Talk Sunshine, I Breathe Fire,” which failed to crack the top 100 in the U.S., is almost as good.  But it had totally escaped my notice until a couple of weeks ago.

“You Talk Sunshine, I Breathe Fire” was never released on an Amboy Dukes LP, but was included as a bonus track when the group’s second album was released on CD.  (Saints be praised!)

Here’s “You Talk Sunshine, I Breathe Fire”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: