Something happened the day I turned on that television set in the family living room. Sheena Easton took over my brain. She was that woman with the accent who sang songs like Morning Train (Nine to Five) on the radio station my mom forced us to listen to in the car. She did We've Got Tonight with Kenny Rogers.
My baby takes the morning train
he works from nine till five and then
He takes another home to find me waitin' for him
Somehow I accidently turned on that silly old Solid Gold show and there she was, coming across the stage all sultry and powerful belting out Strut and controlling my every thought and movement with her eyes. Her eyes were tearing through my eighteen year old mind and untamed libido. I was fixated. This was wrong. At the time I was a follower of the hardcore punk movement and slam dancing was one of my leading forms of entertainment.
Nations go to war over women like you,
it's just a form of appreciation
Come over here, lay your clothes on the chair
Now let the lace fall across your shoulder
Standing in the half light, you're almost like her
So take it slow like your daddy told you
Not long after I heard For Your Eyes Only, a three year old James Bond theme song that in the past had irritated me. Now I was turning it up and smiling. There was some kind of plot going on to pervert my mind and I was falling hook, line and sinker into her trap. Soon after, Sugar Walls was released and I knew it had gone too far. She was some kind of demon goddess sent to destroy me by causing uncontrollable urges that distracted me from everything else in life.
Lemme take you somewhere you've never been
I can show you things you've never seen
I can make you never wanna fall in love again
Come spend the night inside my sugar walls
Dammit, why wouldn't she leave me alone. Why were her eyes staring into my soul evertime she appeared on television or in a video? Thankfully, not long after Sugar Walls she settled back into being more of an average adult contemporary artist with songs better suited for my mother's favorite radio station. I began to imagine the whole thing had been a terrible dream. Then that Morning Train song came on the car radio and I smiled. Boy, she could be caring and considerate as well as demonically sexy. How wonderful. Then I slapped myself hard in the face and slipped a cassette into the tape deck and went back to listening to Black Flag for a while.
Sheena Shirley Orr was born in Belshill, Scotland on April 27, 1959 as the youngest of six children. Her father died when she was ten years old, forcing her mother to take a job as a laborer to support the family. In 1973, Sheena Orr is inspired to become a singer after seeing Barbara Streisand in The Way We Were. She earns a scholarship to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. She sings with a band in the evenings and eventually gets a chance to audition for executives of EMI Records. That goes pretty well for her.
In 1979 she married a gentleman named Sandi Easton. That marriage last eight months, and perhaps Sheena was simply after his name and using the demoness eyes and body movements towards that goal... or perhaps I am on a bad tangent again.
Her first single, Modern Girl, does fairly well but her second single 9 to 5 (released in the U.S. as "Morning Train" because of the Dolly Parton 9 to 5 song currently on the charts.
She releases some more moderately successful stuff before being chosen to sing For Your Eyes Only which wins her the distinction of being the only singer to appear during the opening credits while singing the theme song. Then, in 1983 she records the We've Got Tonight duet with Kenny Rogers, solidifying her position as a nice Scottish girl singing nice love songs. Then, one year later, that all changes. She gets into an artistic relationship with Alexander Nevermind, aka Prince, during the recording of her album A Private Heaven. Around the same time she releases another relatively bizarre project, Todo Me Recuerda A Ti, on which she sings entirely in Spanish even though she doesn't understand Spanish and had to learn the words phonetically.
A Private Heaven includes both Strut and Sugar Walls. The album goes platinum (perhaps I am not the only one to fall under her evil spell) and becomes her best selling album of all times. She gets Tipper Gore upset, and Gore's Family Resource Center attacks Sugar Walls for what they see as sexually explicit content.
In 1987 she does another duet, this time with Prince on U Got The Look and appears with the purple fellow on his Sign O' The Times tour. Then she begins a running guest appearance on Miami Vice as Sonny Crockett/Don Johnson's wife. She continues working with Prince through the end of the 1980s, including a new duet on The Arms of Orion on the Batman movie soundtrack.
As the 1990s began, she returned to less dangerous ground, touring with Man of La Mancha, doing other film soundtracks, and her album No Strings which is a collection of Jazz and Blues tracks. She adopted a baby boy, hit Broadway with a Grease revival as Rizzo and then did a tour with James Ingram, Peabo Bryson and Patti Austin in something called The Colors of Christmas. I guess I don't have to worry about her seducing me with those overwhelming seductive looks and gyrations any longer. It is safe for me to leave the house once again. Oh, and she makes and sells angel figurines on QVC. She must be getting into my thoughts again...
Additional information received from Clone: Sheena is doing the voice of "Anna" in the PC Game Planetscape: Torment. She is being alluring again, he warns me. When will it stop?
Some material confirmed via
Allmusic.com
sheenaeaston.com
and rollingstone.com