#4: Round And Round by Frozen Ghost

City: Burnaby, BC
Radio Station: CFML
Peak Month: October 1988
Peak Position in Burnaby ~ #6
Peak position in Vancouver ~ Hit Bound
Peak Position on Billboard Hot 100 ~ did not chart
YouTube: “Round And Round”
Lyrics: “Round And Round”

Arnold David Lanni was born in 1956 in Toronto. In 1979, he founded the band Sheriff. In 1983 Sheriff had a Top Ten hit in Canada titled “When I’m With You”. Sheriff released a studio album with the single and toured from 1979 to 1985 until it disbanded. “When I’m With You” later became a number-one hit on February 4, 1989, on the Billboard Hot 100. Lanni was Sheriff’s keyboard player and rhythm guitarist. Fellow Sheriff bandmate and bass guitar player, Wolf Hassel, co-founded Frozen Ghost with Lanni later in 1985.

In April 1987, Frozen Ghost released a self-titled studio album, and charted their debut single, “Should I See”, to #16 on the CKLG Top 40 Hot Hits chart in Vancouver. The single also cracked the Top 20 in San Francisco, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Buffalo, Salt Lake City, and Hamilton (ON), and climbed to #69 on the Billboard Hot 100. In June 1987, Frozen Ghost charted “End Of The Line” onto the CKLG Top 40 Hot Hits chart. The single climbed to #11 on the CFML chart in Burnaby (BC) in October 1987. In September 1987, Frozen Ghost charted “Promises” onto the CKLG Top 40 Hot Hits chart. On November 2, 1987, Frozen Ghost received a Juno Award for Most Promising Group of the Year. In February 1988, Frozen Ghost charted “Yum Bai Ya” to #25 on the CKLG Top 40 Hot Hits chart.

In the summer of 1988, Frozen Ghost released their second studio album, Nice Place to Visit. The debut single from the album was “Round And Round”.

“Round And Round” was written by Arnold Lanni. The song is about the challenges that face relationships when insecurities, worries and expectations flood love partners. Do you need the other person to solve your problems? Do you need them to know your weaknesses? Do you need your partner to be “your mother?” How much of your partners past is important to understand, details of their past relationships? The singer asks why love makes “us so insecure,” or is attached to “conditions.”

On the website wildsimplejoy.com, Dawn Elizabeth writes about warning signs of conditional love from a partner, and also discusses conditional love from a parent to a child. In her summary, warns about these signals:

1) You never feel good enough. Does it seem like you need to be someone else, or be acting differently? Maybe you need to be in a relationship with someone who loves you just the way you are.

2) They drain your energy. You find it stressful to be around your romantic partner, and you find yourself feeling down, reserved, cautious, becoming smaller.

3) You dread seeing them. If you start to go home late, because you want to avoid being back in the home you share. You schedule extra meetings at work, or other social activities that exclude your partner because you basically don’t feel that emotionally safe around them.

4) They express love and pride in public. But when you are alone with each other, they become highly critical.

5) Little things mean a lot. While they may make a big deal about your birthday or an anniversary, they pick away at you. Your esteem is given a run for its money as you feel under appreciated, and feel their withholding and omissions in the day-to-day details of sharing a life.

6) You are on the receiving end of their judgements. They complain about you in absolute terms, “you always…” or “you never…”

7) If you have to sort through a difficulty with them, they will get defensive and bring up a list of times you disappointed them, as they avoid addressing the matter you brought up.

A conditional love will leave one or both parties having to say they are sorry, over and over again, not only for specific screw-ups, but finally for being who they are.

“Round And Round” peaked at #6 in Burnaby (BC), #20 in Sydney (NS), and #22 in Hamilton (ON).

In January 1989, Frozen Ghost released “Pauper In Paradise” which climbed to #9 in Burnaby and #35 in Vancouver. Later in June 1989, “Dream Come True” climbed into the Top 20 in Hamilton (ON). The lead single from Frozen Ghost’s third and final album, Shake Your Spirit, was “Head Over Heels”. The single peaked at #16 on the RPM Canadian Pop Singles chart in 1992.

After Frozen Ghost disbanded in 1993, Arnold Lanni became a successful producer with acts such as Out Lady Peace, Finger Eleven, and Thousand Foot Krutch. In 1996, Wolf Hassel would was playing with the band Erin Cody and the Drum. In 2003, Hassel appeared as a studio musician on an album with blues musician Brian Gladstone. On December 30, 2011, Hassel rejoined his former Sheriff bandmates, Freddy Curci and Steve DeMarchi,  for an onstage performance by Curci and DeMarchi’s post-Sheriff band, Alias. Subsequently, Hassel, became a bandmate in Alias beginning in 2014.

September 16, 2023
Ray McGinnis

References:
Tom Breihan, “The Number Ones: Sheriff’s ‘When I’m With You’“, Stereogum.com, June 23, 2021.
Dawn Elizabeth, “17 Signs of Conditional Love: Watch Out for these Red Flags,” wildsimplejoy.com, April 8, 2022.

CFML Top Ten, October 16, 1988