With its pulsating synth lines, cool special effects, and catchy chorus, it wouldn’t have taken too much to put “Kids in America,” released in 1981, over the edge. Luckily, the song also benefited from a wonderful vocal performance by Kim Wilde, which is all the more impressive when you consider it was her first single.
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What is the song about? What inspired its lyrics? And how did Wilde receive crucial help from some family members to complete the track? This is how it all went down for “Kids in America,” one of the defining synth-pop hits of the early ’80s.
Concocting “Kids”
Kim Wilde sort of wandered into her shot at stardom. It helped that she had some family ties: Her brother Ricky had been a Donny Osmond-type young performer in the UK in the ’70s, while her father Marty scored some pre-Beatles rock hits before also making a dent as both an actor and a songwriter.
When her brother went to meet famed British hitmaker Mickie Most to show off his burgeoning writing-producing skills, Kim tagged along. Kim was thinking she might have a shot at being a backing singer. But Most thought that she had the look of a pop star and suggested she work with some of his in-house producers at RAK Records.
Ricky Wilde, determined to beat RAK to the punch, set about to write his own track for his sister to sing. He did so by creating a throbbing synthesizer pulse alongside some crashing electronic beats. The results were akin to other popular acts at the time like Gary Numan and OMD, albeit with a bit more of a pop twist. Once that was in place, he just needed some lyrics, and his dad came to the rescue.
“America” the Frightful
When given the assignment to write lyrics to the song that would become “Kids in America,” Marty Wilde tapped into his own angst about the generational divide, especially when it came to American kids, as he explained in an interview with The Guardian:
“I’d seen this TV show about teenagers in America, which frightened the life out of me. It was like an X-rated movie. They didn’t seem to have any heart. I thought: ‘My God, what are they going to grow into?’ It was probably how the older generation had looked on me and all the other early rock ‘n’ rollers.”
He wrote the lyrics from the perspective of a girl having to deal with all this youthful insanity. It was Kim Wilde who brought it all to life, as she managed an icy detachment in the verses, contrasted by a cathartic emotional outburst in the chorus. The result is a song that’s cool but not cold, realistic about the scene but hopeful nonetheless.
What is the Meaning of “Kids in America”?
Although Marty Wilde might have written the lyrics from the perspective of an outsider worrying about the mindset of the typical American teenager, he wisely put his words in the mouth of a youth who feels the allure of that lifestyle (I can feel the heat, but it’s soothing). Thus, instead of coming across as criticism, “Kids in America” feels more like an honest assessment of that scene and all its ups and downs.
The girl at the heart of the story gets caught up in a whirlwind romance, but she’s clear-eyed about its prospects: Much later, baby, you’ll be saying, “Never mind.” She realizes a jaded attitude is the only way to survive: Kind hearts don’t make a new story / Kind hearts don’t grab any glory. Outside suburbia’s sprawling everywhere, she sings, as if the nightlife itself is sentient and all-devouring.
Maybe these Brits gave away their foreign status by mentioning the regions from New York to East California. (Then again, Southern California wouldn’t have scanned.) But they nonetheless delivered a worthy anthem that captured that particular place and time, with Kim Wilde as the ideal embodiment of a teenage oracle.
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