Talk To Ya Later

In this song, a guy goes on a bender and picks up a girl. They go back to his place, which is a win, but then... she won't leave. Not only that, she just won't shut up, and it's driving him crazy. "Talk to ya later," he tells her, trying desperately to get her to leave.

This was a breakthrough single for The Tubes, who released their debut album on A&M Records in 1975 and earned lots of attention for their elaborate stage shows, which featured dance routines, characters, video screens and costumes. The shows were memorable but expensive, and they didn't translate to album sales. A&M gave up on them in 1981 and the band signed with Capitol, which was rewarded when their first single with the label, the ballad "Don't Want To Wait Anymore," gave them their first Top 40 hit, coming in at #35. "Talk To Ya Later" was the next single, and while it stalled at #101, it eventually got added to various radio station playlists, becoming the first song to earn significant airplay for the band.

Tubes lead singer Fee Waybill wrote this with Toto guitarist Steve Lukather and with David Foster, who produced the album. Lukather and Foster - the guys who gave us "I'll Be Over You" and "Glory Of Love - aren't who you would expect to write a song about a one-night-stand that goes horribly wrong when the girl won't leave, but the lyric is right in Waybill's wheelhouse - he lists toward the eccentric and unexpected. Waybill came up with the title after spending some time with Humberto Gatica, who was the engineer for the album. Humberto was a magician at the controls, so The Tubes spent a lot of time hanging out with him to learn technique. This made it hard for him to work, so in his Chilean accent he would gently dismiss the band by telling them, "Talk to you later." When Waybill started writing the song with Foster and Lukather, that phrase wouldn't leave his head. He decided "Talk To Ya Later" should be the title, and wrote a chorus around the phrase. From there, he fleshed out the storyline in the verses.