#39: My Male Curiosity by Kid Creole and the Coconuts

City: Montreal, PQ
Radio Station: CKOI
Peak Month: November 1984
Peak Position in Montreal ~ #2
Peak position in Vancouver ~ did not chart
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ #110
YouTube: “My Male Curiosity”
Lyrics: “My Male Curiosity”

Thomas August Darnell Browder was born in 1950 in The Bronx (NY). Darnell began his musical career in a band named The In-Laws with his half-brother, Stony Browder Jr., in 1965. The band disbanded so Darnell could pursue a career as an English teacher. He taught at Alverta B. Gray Schultz Middle School in Hempstead (NY). He later claimed that he established a musical career because he was a “frustrated actor.” In 1974, again with Stony Browder, he formed Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band, becoming its lyricist and bass player. The band combined swing and Latin music with disco rhythms. They had their biggest hit in 1976 with “Cherchez La Femme”. The single topped the Billboard Disco Action Top 30 chart, and peaked at #2 in Belgium and the Netherlands. Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band’s self-titled debut release was a Top 40-charting album. It was certified gold and was nominated for a Grammy.

In 2011, the Guardian wrote of August Darnell, “The self-styled Tropical Gangster – who brought flamboyance, colour and calypso to pop – had actually earned and lost a million before he’d even formed Kid Creole and the Coconuts….His brother’s weakness was drugs, Darnell’s was women. “They were my tragic flaw,” he says. “Flying this one in, buying them presents. It was ridiculously addictive behaviour.”

In 1979, Darnell left Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band. He joined the band Machine, and co-wrote their best known song “There But for the Grace of God Go I”. Darnell also began producing for other artists before in 1980 adopting the name Kid Creole. This was adapted from the 1958 Elvis Presley film King Creole. Darnell described the persona of Kid Creole as “a flamboyant, devil-may-care bon vivant”.

August Darnell as ‘Kid Creole’

With his band and backing singers collectively known as Kid Creole and the Coconuts, he established an exuberant musical style drawing on such influences as big bands, notably that of Cab Calloway, salsa, jazz, pop music and disco. Darnell wrote the lyrics, which “satirized the high life at a time when America was ravaged by recession”. The band released a single in 1980, “There But For the Grace of God Go I”, which reached #53 on the U.S. Dance Club chart. From their album Mutant Disco: A Subtle Discolation of the Norm, the band released a double-sided single “Que Pasa” / “Me No Pop I”. It climbed to #32 on the UK pop chart in 1980.

In 1982, the band released Tropical Gangsters/Wise Guy. The album reached #3 in the UK, #6 in the Netherlands and New Zealand, #9 in France, and the Top 20 in Norway and West Germany. From the album came “I’m A Wonderful Thing, Baby”. The single peaked at #4 on the UK pop chart. It also made the Top 20 in Belgium, the Top 30 in the Netherlands, and charted in Australia and New Zealand. A followup single, “Stool Pigeon”, climbed to #7 in the UK, #8 in New Zealand, and cracked the Top 20 in both Ireland and the Netherlands. A third single from the album, “Annie, I’m Not Your Daddy”, soared to #2 in the UK, #3 in the Netherlands, #4 in Belgium and Ireland, and #13 in New Zealand.

The Guardian wrote in 2011, “Dr Buzzard and Kid Creole satirised the high life at a time when America was ravaged by recession. “It was huge satire,” says Darnell, an astute observer of pop who has a masters degree in English. He intended to become a teacher – a fact that belies his reputation, in the guise of Kid Creole, as a zoot-suited wise guy surrounded by scantily clad Coconuts. “I’m a capitalist and I love money, but originally we frowned on it – the idea of the elegant elite. Then we became the thing we made fun of.”

In 1983, the band released the studio album Doppelganger. The album climbed to #13 in Sweden, and #21 in the UK. In 1984, Kid Creole and the Coconuts recorded “My Male Curiosity” for a track in the soundtrack for the film Against All Odds.

“My Male Curiosity” was written by August Darnell. In Against All Odds, Kid Creole and the Coconuts perform “My Male Curiosity” at a nightclub. As the song is being sung, aging football star Terry (Jeff Bridges) is hired by nightclub owner, mobster and gambler Jake Wise (James Woods) to find his missing girlfriend, Jessie Wyler (Rachel Ward).

In the song the singer agrees that the romantic duo he’s part of are “like a bike built for two.” However, he doesn’t seem to be a guy made for just one woman. You see, he explains “another girl’s arousing my male curiosity…. And there’s nothing that I can do.” He compares himself to a hound dog, and now he understands “hound dogs can’t be tamed.” He thought his romantic partnership would change his ways. But, it’s no use. Still, he’s enjoyed the relationship he’s had “hanging out without parachutes.” But, he’s used to making an exit (with a parachute) so he can land somewhere else (to extend the metaphor).

“My Male Curiosity” peaked at #2 in Montreal, #7 in Newton (MA), and #11 in Sherbrooke (PQ). On the Billboard Hot 100, “My Male Curiosity” bubbled beneath the Hot 100 where it peaked at #110. It cracked the Top 100 pop singles chart in the UK, stalling at #83.

Against All Odds: Music from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack received a 1985 Grammy Award nomination for Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture of Television Special. The album featured Big Country, Kid Creole & the Coconuts, Stevie Nicks and Genesis breakout stars Mike Rutherford, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins. The latter sang the theme song “Against All Odds”. Collins single shot to number-one in Canada, Ireland, Israel, Norway, Portugal and the USA. It was also a Top Ten hit in Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Paraguay, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK, Uruguay, and West Germany. Sales of the movie soundtrack, and box office ticket sales of the film, gave Kid Creole and the Coconuts wider exposure.

The group released three albums that became especially successful in Europe. However, the band was much less successful in the U.S., and was eventually dropped by Sony Records. In 1983, August Darnell formed Elbow Bones and the Racketeers. In 1984, they had a Top Ten hit in Montreal titled “A Night in New York”.

Darnell and other bandmates were all at the White House for a summer picnic in 1996. They were joined by President Bill Clinton on saxophone as they performed a Kid Creole and the Coconuts reunion.

August Darnell moved to the UK and then to Denmark and Sweden, where he lives. Kid Creole and the Coconuts released their fourteenth studio album, I Wake Up Screaming, in 2011. In 2016, August Darnell told the New York Times he was working on a new musical featuring his hit songs.

May 23, 2025
Ray McGinnis

References:
Jason Anderson, “The man behind the Kid: Compilation shows there’s more to August Darnell than Kid Creole and the Coconuts,” CBC, August 29, 2008.
“Elbow Bones And The Racketeers-New York At Dawn,” Derek’s Music Blog, March 16, 2016.
Paul Lester, “Kid Creole: I’m Not A Party Man Anymore,” Guardian, September 7, 2011.
Scene: “My Male Curiosity“, Kid Creole and the Coconuts in Against All Odds, Columbia Pictures, 1984.
Jon Pareles, “Dapper as ever, Kid Creole Dresses Up His Songs for a New Musical,” New York Times, May 22, 2016.

CKOI 96.9 Montreal (PQ) Top Ten | November 9, 1984