This suggests that the girl may take advantage of him and his endearment for her, as she is undeniably aware that he would do anything for her. She builds him up with confidence, only to confess to him that she doesn’t have feelings towards him making him question her cruel behavior. “Why do you build me up Buttercup, baby/ Just to let me down and mess me around/ and then worst of all you never call, baby/ when you say you will, but I love you still.” The desperation becomes evident, as the narrator admits to loving this girl so much he doesn’t care that he has previously been let down he will continue to love her.Because he loves this girl so much, he prioritizes her over everything else, saying “I need you more than anyone, darlin’/ you know that I have from the start”. The girl that the narrator loves and addresses in the song has lead him on, saying that she will call, but never actually doing so. The song is stylized in ways that make it difficult to recognize or feel the pain behind the actual lyrics, with bright and popping brass instruments and snappy drum hits, displaying many qualities of both soul and ska.

The song seems as though it is cheerful and upbeat, with vocals that are smooth and relaxed, unlike what you would expect of somebody who is crying out in passion. The mood of the music ironically undermines the meaning of the lyrics throughout, as it is a passionate song in which a man professes his unrequited love for a girl who has continuously thwarted his affection. The entire essence of the song is a single persons’ desperation about a girl who does not reciprocate the same feelings of affection. Their second greatest single, “Build Me Up Buttercup” reached number two in the UK and was number three on the US’s Billboard Hot 100 in 1968. “Build Me Up Buttercup”, was written by producer Tony Macauley and songwriter Mike D’Abo, neither of whom were members of the band. “Yeah, but your cruise boyfriend hasn’t rubbed your body down with oils,” I said.The Foundations, a multiracial group signed by the UK’s Pye Label, were formed in 1967 and are considered to be one of the first British groups to successfully adopt the Motown sound. Incidentally, when we first discovered Paul O’Shea, after a day of me pining over Aihnoa, Alex declared, “Well, it looks like now I have a cruise boyfriend to match your cruise girlfriend.”

It made for a tense two-and-a-half minutes each time this song came up on the tracklist.Īnd that’s a tension that could only be assuaged by the prettiest Spanish masseuse on the high seas. This is a song that has several ‘hey hey heys’ and ‘ooo ooooos’ and ‘bah-dah-dahs’ and I was wholly unprepared to deliver any of them, even when prompted. Such was the case with The Foundations’ ‘Build Me Up Buttercup,’ a song that sounds incredibly familiar in the way a lot of oldies do but one that was at the same time utterly foreign to me. One of the perils of the piano bar is getting caught singing along to a song you don’t really know. If not, please disregard the previous paragraph. I write these posts in advance, so I’m guessing that my wife, Alex, might have broken her Internet silence to comment on yesterday’s post and reveal that while, yes, she did have a crush on piano man Paul O’Shea, it paled in comparison to the crush I had on massage therapist Aihnoa Gallardo.

Fill me up buttercup