RAMBLE ON: "Falling in Love (Uh-Oh)" by Miami Sound Machine

The video for “Falling in Love (Uh-Oh)” is credited to Gloria Estefan on YouTube, even though upon its release in 1986 it had been credited to the group Miami Sound Machine. In fact, all of Miami Sound Machine’s songs are now labeled that way on YouTube. It’s open to debate when the Sound Machine stopped being a real band, and whether they deserve the distinction from Gloria’s solo career; by 1990, bandleader Emilio Estefan had completely pushed out the original core of the group and made his wife Gloria the star, leading to decades of bad blood. “Conga,” their barnburner signature hit, is the only video on Gloria’s YouTube page where she was kind enough to give Miami Sound Machine a co-credit. It makes sense; the full band’s presence on that song is undeniable (naturally for a song called “Conga,” it was written by their drummer, and sounds like a song written by a drummer). If there was any song where Gloria would have to acknowledge her old bandmates, it’d be that one.

But I’d make the case that “Falling in Love,” specifically, also deserves to be credited to the full band.  A big part of this, of course, is the Sound Machine’s very prominent backing vocals on the chorus; they actually have more to do on the hook than Gloria does, they’re as important to this song as the Pips are to “Midnight Train to Georgia.” But I also have a second reason to credit the band: “Falling in Love (Uh-Oh)” does not feel like a superstar’s song. It’s too quiet, too haunted, too covered in shadows and fog. It feels like the presence of a big-name celebrity should overwhelm the song; instead, the song overwhelms her. This is a song that belongs to faceless, unknown sidemen, and it’s all the better for it.

“Falling in Love (Uh-Oh)” was not a big hit, stalling out at #25. The big ballad from that album was “Words Get in the Way,” which doesn’t even have a video as far as I can tell. Perhaps it just didn’t grab people quickly enough; it’s not exactly a high-concept song, or one with a compelling title. (That clunky parenthetical, like all parentheticals, just makes it feel awkward; words get in the way indeed.)  Uh-oh, uh-oh, falling in love, falling in love again. That basically sums it up. No one ever mentions it.

And yet something about it caught me the first time I heard it. I knew little about Gloria Estefan coming into it; by the time I got into music, Gloria had faded into history as a distantly remembered star of early ‘90s adult contemporary, a most disreputable genre largely relegated to the dustbin of history. She is of course still a legend of Latin music (which unfortunately remains a serious blind spot for me as a critic), but her legacy in the Anglo world has largely diminished with time.

So what is about this song in particular? Part of it is how Gloria seems to actively turn the wattage down. This is not a song of personality, it’s a song of vibes. Her singing is slow, controlled; it’s may not be showy but it’s deceptively hard to sing a song this measured. The video is wonderfully generic, full of ‘80s cliches; the fog machine, the creepy mannequins in the background, the bass player plucking a contrabass (perhaps to evoke the similar “Every Breath You Take” video); all the best of MTV’s clumsy gestures towards the avant-garde. Gloria sways awkwardly as she sings; she doesn’t look like a superstar, in her shoulder pads and chunky jewelry, but more like one of the era’s forgotten torch singers, a Martika or a Laura Branigan. If she looks less like a star than usual, the rest of the band goes well beyond that; they fade into the frame, all ugly shades and earrings and unfortunate facial hair.

But something magical happens when she gets to the chorus. “Uh-oh, uh-oh,” she sings, looking straight at the camera, cocking her head. She looks distracted, thinking about something else. That casualness permeates through the song; she travels through this song in a trance. But the band’s background vocals (“falling in love, falling in love again, and I don’t want it, no, no, no”) is the song’s most powerful and unexpected hook. They sing like people who don’t generally sing; it feels like it violates some unspoken rule, that their voices aren’t to be heard. (Despite my comparison above, they are certainly no Pips.)

What their presence does is reinforce the song’s dreamlike quality, the idea that love is something Gloria is being inexorably drawn to with no free will. (“I’m haunted by your stare,” “I’m just so damned confused,” “something in the air.”) The video bears this out; the guitarist plays his giant double bass even it’s clearly a synthbass playing on the track, wild man Kiki Garcia goes nuts on his drums even though the beat we hear is steady and even sterile, possibly a drum machine. Towards the end, Gloria begins missing her parts and lipsynching to the backup singers instead. This is not a particular amazing song lyrically (one line in the bridge, “just wanna hoooooold you,” clunks like a garbage truck), but Gloria’s ethereal singing carries it away.

If there’s more to the song, I don’t know it. The only person I know who’s ever mentioned is me; all I found on YouTube besides the video was a deeply redundant vaporwave remix that adds nothing and is somehow less vaporwave than the original (although, someone tells me on Twitter that when people talk about underrated Gloria Estefan songs, this is always the one that’s mentioned). Honestly, it fits better that way. “Conga” and “Bad Boy” and “Rhythm Is Gonna Get Ya” are songs of wild energy that deserve to be at the forefront of the Gloria canon. “Falling in Love (Uh-Oh)” is a song that seems almost designed to be forgotten, a wisp of a memory at best. I love it. Uh-oh.