During a recent interview with Metal Edge, Blackie Lawless shared the story of the legendary W.A.S.P song ‘I Wanna Be Somebody’ by giving all the details about their inspiration.
The story of this song was based on a TV show character the band watched together, as Lawless explained in the interview. He revealed that it comes from the Detective Harris character from Barney Miller TV show. Lawless said that someone got sick, and the squad was trying to figure out if he had smallpox or chickenpox. The night they were being quarantined, the character saw a dream of being an author and having his portfolio while talking about it loudly.
Blackie mentioned that the character said, ‘God, I want to be somebody!’ Lawless revealed that he was inspired by the line and tone of the character’s way of saying this sentence for their song. He pointed out that when he heard this line, he thought that everybody would share the same feeling with this line. He stated that he was very impressed with how the character said the sentence with ‘urgency’ and that they created this song by adding new ideas.
Blackie Lawless said the following:
“It was from the Barney Miller TV show. There was a character Ron Glass played the part of Detective Harris, and it was from an episode where somebody in the squad room had chickenpox. But they weren’t sure if it was chickenpox or smallpox, so they had to be quarantined over the course of an evening. And he’s sleeping in the squad room on one of the cots, and he’s having this dream about wanting to be a famous author and having a big stock portfolio, so he’s talking out loud in his sleeping.
And finally, at the end of the thing, he goes, “God, I want to be somebody!” And the way he said it is pretty much the way I say it in the song. It’s really not that much different. But when I heard it, I had already been working on the music for what would be the song. And when I heard that, it really struck me. And I thought ‘a lot of people have got to feel like that.'”
He continued:
“I’ve since heard it said, in a number of different ways, from different people, but never quite like I heard him say it that night. And it was the urgency in his voice. The way he said it. So, we just put a backbeat behind it. I mean, musically, I think we’ve done stuff that far surpasses it. But it’s not always just that. It’s the sentiment in the song and the idea of the song.”
For musicians, the stories of movies, shows, and their characters can inspire them. Obviously, how a character utters a sentence describing all humanity was very inspiring for W.A.S.P.
