How Phil Collins Turned a Nonsense Word into a #1 Hit: The Story of “Sussudio”

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Coming up next, the story of a number one smash from 1985 based on a made-up word.

It's one that just fell out of this artist's mouth while he was seeing while he was recording.

I mean, even the legend who sang it had no idea what it meant.

Unable to think at anything better, he decided to just make up a meaning for it.

But as weird as it is, this song completely captivated listeners.

However, as it started gaining traction, it also stirred up a lot of controversy.

Critics noticed that a central riff was nearly a carbon copy of another huge hit

from a few years earlier.

Not long after this, a legendary artist confessed it was a rip-off job.

But the question was to what degree?

The parallels were unmistakable, but was there enough to nail this artist for plagiarism?

Find out next on a great story coming up on Professor of Rock.

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That little remembrance came from viewer Alan Gray.

Love that.

I used to do that as well.

It's time for another edition of our series, Career Suicide.

This is the show where we break down a song or an album that took a massive risk

and maybe the gamble paid off or maybe it was a complete disaster.

In this show, it could go either way.

But whatever the outcome, it's a guarantee great story.

Today we're featuring a legend who by his own admission intentionally ripped off another

artist's iconic track and made it a smash hit.

From the 1980s hit make a machine, it's Phil Collins with his third studio album, No

Jacket Required, and the song, The Number One Hit, is Sussudio.

So what song did Sussudio rip off?

If you don't already know, well, make your guess down in the comments and we'll see

if you get it right.

Do that now.

So when No Jacket Required, dropped on February 18, 1985, Phil Collins was already well

on his way to dominating the 80s.

The two had to monster a solo fill in Genesis.

Phil Collins would kick out a slew of hits throughout the neon decade.

Talking about songs, classics like In the Air tonight, invisible touch against all odds,

and that's all by that time.

But that wasn't all.

You're after a year, it seemed like you couldn't turn on the radio dial without here and

Phil do his thing and then do it again.

I love that though, because Phil's one of my favorites.

In the midst of all this success though, No Jacket Required became the high water mark

of his solo career.

No Jacket was his first number one album in the US and would stay on the top for seven

weeks.

International eight reach number six in France, number five in Finland, number four in Japan

in Italy, and get this.

Number one in Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain,

Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.

Not a bad showing at all.

No Jacket Required also scored Collins the 1985 Grammy for Alman the Year and in 1986

it received two American musical nominations for favorite pop rock male artist and favorite

pop rock album overall.

I'm back.

This is back when people actually watched and cared about those two shows.

And at the Brutal Awards, it received two more awards, one for British Alman the Year

and another for Best British Mel solo artist.

He was on the top of his game.

I said Collins about the record.

When I first started writing stuff for the new album, I said to myself, I want to write

some different kinds of songs because I don't want to be known as a miserable sod.

A lot of my songs are not necessarily miserable, but they're about a certain aspect of a relationship

or relationships, which isn't the most optimistic.

So I decided to do some dance oriented songs.

And of course, that's Phil's cryptic reference to his obsession with writing about his first

ex-wife, Andrea Berterelli.

Collins was by no means gun shy about dredging up the wreckage of his broken marriage and

crafting it into some of the most memorable songs ever.

Of course, we've covered that all before.

Last one we covered was, I don't care anymore.

Great song.

So no jacket required definitely signaled a new direction for Phil Collins.

Or not so miserable single who were released from this album.

There should have been more.

It could have been so many more hits.

All of these four, though, would breach the top 10.

Don't lose my number.

Take me home one more night in today's song, Su-Su-Dio.

Okay, before we're going any further, we got to address the most obvious question about

Su-Su-Dio.

What the hell does the word Su-Su-Dio mean?

If you're still wondering after all these years, you're not alone.

It's definitely a strange title, right?

Well, on VH1 storytellers Phil Collins gave us the story.

He explained that Su-Su-Dio was a completely improvised title that came to him while he was

writing the song.

After programming the song grew into a drum machine, don't get me started on that.

What the hell was a drummer of Phil's caliber doing using a drum machine?

It was the 80s, I guess.

But after getting the beat and laying down some chords, Phil stepped up to the mic and

he started singing.

And this nonsensical word just came out of nowhere.

Su-Su-Dio.

It was just complete gibberish.

And yet, if it fit the flow of the song perfectly, Phil tells it he had no intention of keeping

it there.

It was just supposed to be a placeholder, right?

Because let's be honest.

Even Phil knew that it didn't mean anything.

And a lot of singers, they throw out nonsensical words to get the flow of the melody.

Later, though, when he tried to finish the song, he couldn't figure out another word

that would actually fit his perfectly Su-Su-Dio.

He stuck with it and decided just to try to work around it.

So this is exactly what Phil said about it, and I thought, okay, let's give it a meaning.

What is it?

The lyrics are based on the schoolboy crush on this girl at school.

I know she likes me, doesn't know my name, doesn't know what it exists, but I know she

likes me.

So that's what the song is about.

So Su-Su-Dio became a name for this girl.

And I'm sure there are children all over the world with a name Su-Su-Dio, so I apologize

for that.

It's words.

If you have it, if you want of them, let us know in the comments.

I've never met somebody called Su-Su-Dio, and I don't think you have either.

Incidentally, Phil Collins also told the story of Su-Su-Dio's origins on late night with

David Letterman back in 85.

I remember watching this as a kid.

Letterman gave him a lot of crap about this song.

David started off the interview by pointing out that Phil Collins had become one of the

biggest names of music and started teasing Phil, saying that since he's gotten so popular,

he can now just start making up words and still expect to sell millions of records.

All right, let's get down to it.

What the heck is the deal?

You could tell that Phil was a little bit tongue-tied.

He explained that Su-Su-Dio was just a word that came out of his mouth while he was writing

the song.

You know, Dave's like, the music buying public is supposed to put their money down for

a word that just dropped out of your mouth?

Of course, Phil defended himself by siding other songs with nonsensical lyrics, like Little

Richard's 2D Fruity.

But Dave wasn't having it at all.

Of course, it was all in good fun.

But the exchange brings up an interesting subject.

Popular songs with completely nonsensical lyrics.

I mean, just off the top of my head, a Wapapa Loubop, B-Boppa Lula, Duwad Diddy, Kuku Kuchu,

I mean, everywhere.

There's gibberish and pop music.

We haven't even, not even thinking of the 70s yet.

That's all examples from the 60s.

What should you do an episode on that for sure, nonsensical words and pop songs?

On another occasion, Phil calls describe the meaning of Su-Su-Dio, the song, not the

word.

He said, it's about everything and yet it's about nothing.

Seriously, it's about a younger man's fantasy for an older woman, because she smiles

at me automatically thinks she fancies him and she becomes the object of his fantasies.

To song, I'm sure people will identify with.

It's like the first tumble on a sofa with your first girl are clamming around in the

back of the car.

His words.

So there you go.

Su-Su-Dio explains straight from the master himself of Collins.

Released on January 14, 1985, Su-Su-Dio is no jacket's second single and went to number

one on the Billboard Hot 100.

This actually gave Collins three number one solo singles in a row.

If you discount his number two hit, Easy Lover, which was a duet with Philip Bailey.

The three Pete also included against all odds, take a look at me now and one more night.

So adding to the accolades, Su-Su-Dio was a monster cross over hit as well.

In addition to topping the Hot 100, it also reached number four in the dance club chart

and went to number eight on the RMB chart, went to number 10 on the mainstream rock chart

and number 30 on the USAC chart, Bill Contemporary.

I mean, was there anyone not listening to Phil Collins in 1985?

Internationally, Su-Su-Dio went to number 17 in Germany, number 13 in Finland, number 12

in the UK, number 10 in Canada, number eight in Spain, Australia, and number three in

the Netherlands.

So, you know, it was killing all over the place, everybody loved this song.

The single was also certified goal by the RIAA and has since garnered over 250 million

streams on YouTube and Spotify.

In terms of pop culture, Su-Su-Dio has also been covered by Yacht Rock Review.

It's also appeared in several movies and TV shows including Alfred Hitchcock Presents,

American Psycho, Malcolm in the middle, and Despicable Me 3.

Collins also made a call back to Su-Su-Dio in his 1990 music video for hanging long enough.

In the video, Collins and his band are playing on a sinking ship that was called the SS

Su-Su-Dio.

Su-Su-Dio made a supersized footprint in 80s pop culture, no doubt about it.

However, the song success was not without some controversy.

That's because the overall sound and production of the track bears an undeniable resemblance

to another huge ship from the 80s.

So did you guys guess it?

Well, the song is Prince's 1999.

A fact that didn't escape the attention of music critics and DJs in 1985, and as you can

imagine, they really laid in the Collins for the glaring similarities.

But before we get into all that, let's set up 1999 for a minute, released in September

82, 1999 preceded Su-Su-Dio on the airways by, you know, two and a half years.

So it's not like Phil Collins was tapping into a track decades old.

1999 was still very much in recent memories, still being played on the radio.

The origins of the track date back to February of 1982 during Prince's controversy tour.

As the story goes, 1999 was inspired by a documentary about Nostradamus and his end of

the world visions.

I guess the Bangkok to show one night during a hotel stay on the road, and it wasn't long

before Prince channeled the concept into a draft of his highly danceable, um, Doomsday

track, if you will.

Said drummer Bobby Z about overnight, he turned the film into a song.

He'd mixed this history of Nostradamus with a party theme, the end of the world with

this massive party.

Later in the actual year 1999, he was talking to Larry King Prince, and he said that a lot

of people were speculating on what was going to happen, and I just found it really ironic

how everyone that was around me, who I thought to be very optimistic people, they were dreading

those days, and I always knew I'd be cool.

I never felt like this was going to be a rough time for me.

I knew that there were going to be rough times, but I wanted to write something that gave

hope.

1999 was of course written during the height of the Cold War.

You know, when fears of nuclear armageddon were at their peak, of course we're getting

there right now.

Everybody's got a bomb, we could all die any day.

But just like Prince told Larry King, he was optimistic about the end of the days,

finding the lines, if you didn't come to party, don't bother knocking on my door.

For Prince, life was just a party, and he wasn't about to let something as trivial as the

end of the world's boil is a good time.

So this dancing in the face of danger pop hit would resonate with a whole lot of people,

but actually at first it didn't.

1999 was only a modest hit on the hot 100 when it was released in 1982.

It went to number 44.

Of course it did better on the R&B charts.

It went to number 4 there.

And on the dance club charts, it topped out at number 1.

It actually took the help of another Prince single for it to break through into the mainstream.

1999 would have a resurgence the following year after the release of Little Red Corvette

for February of 1983.

Little Red Corvette went to number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100,

in part thanks to being placed in heavy rotation on MTV.

After it was a hit, 1999 was re-released as a single,

and this time it climbed to number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100.

But it's still short of its potential on the charts in my opinion.

But you know what, let's get back to Phil Collins.

Phil for his part has never denied the influence of 1999 on su studio.

In fact, he's embraced it.

He admitted to being star-struck by Prince's track the first time he heard it.

He said and I quote,

I loved that song.

I bought it when it first came out and I used to listen to it on the road.

And Collins also said about su studio,

this is me trying to ride a dance track.

It was definitely influenced by Prince and was the first time I worked with dance synth programmers.

So according to Collins, what he did was swipe 1999's tempo and lock it into his drum machine,

his words.

And then the song similarities don't end there.

Along with the groove, Collins copped the 1999 central synthesizer riff as well.

You can definitely hear it in the song.

And if that's not enough,

according to Phil's guitarist, Gerald Sturmer,

the original demo for su studio sounded even more like 1999 than the finished product did.

He said and I quote,

the bass line in the song changed from how it first sounded.

So su studio actually ended up sounding less like 1999 after the bass line was laid down.

So it's not like any of this was an accident.

Still, Phil Collins defended himself saying,

if anyone thinks I'm ripping off specific songs, that's up to them.

So su studio has changed once because it was starting to sound a bit too much like Prince.

I could never write a song like Prince because I'm not from that environment.

I'm a white guy from Hounslow in London.

With that being said, Phil was at his peak in 1985 with one of the biggest albums of the 80s.

Along with playing live aid on both continents in one day, he was on fire.

In that moment, he was arguably the biggest pop star on the planet,

not named MJ Prince or Madonna.

And he looked more like your uncle than a superstar.

But that's why we love him.

We see ourselves in him.

And he's one of us.

Even if you ripped off Prince, you know, with a song title based on a made-up word that sounds

more like a catchy name for a hair gel than a number one pop it.

Thanks so much for watching.

What do you think? Did he rip him off?

Leave us a comment about Phil Collins and su studio and 1999 in Prince.

What are your memories of the song?

What do you think about 1985?

What a year in music.

Let's talk about it below.

I love Phil's no jacket required.

Make sure to vote for Phil Collins into the rock and roll hall of fame.

You can click on the link below in the description or at the link on our page here at the top corner.

You can vote every day.

We got to get filled into the hall of fame.

I'm telling you, there never be another artist like Phil Collins as a drummer, singer, songwriter.

Doing what he did in Genesis and Solo.

He really is the co-king of pop with Michael Jackson.

Rose so many great hits.

Got to do it before his health goes bad.

He's truly, he's not repeatable as an artist.

He'll never be another person that is accomplished and don't what he has done

as a drummer, singer, songwriter.

I love Phil. He's one of my favorites.

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