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"Vacation" is a 1982 single released by the all-female rock band, the Go-Go's. The song was the first single from the album, Vacation.

"Vacation"
Standard artwork
Single by the Go-Go's
from the album Vacation
B-side	"Beatnik Beach"
Released	July 20, 1982
Recorded	1982
Genre	New wave
Length	2:59
Label	I.R.S.
Songwriter(s)	Charlotte Caffey Kathy Valentine Jane Wiedlin
Producer(s)	Richard Gottehrer
The Go-Go's singles chronology
"We Got the Beat" (1982) "Vacation" (1982) "Get Up and Go" (1982)

The song became one of the Go-Go's highest charting singles, reaching No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 1982, being the band's second and final US top-10 hit. The song was released on 7" vinyl format, with the surf rock song "Beatnik Beach" as the single's B-side. "Vacation" carries the distinction of being released as the first known cassette single or "cassingle" as trademarked by I.R.S. Records.[1]

Cash Box called it "propulsive power pop."[2]

A previous version of "Vacation" written solely by Kathy Valentine was an EP and later 45 by the earlier band she was in, The Textones. Both the EP and 45 were on Chiswick Records in the United Kingdom.

Music video

The video, which was directed by Mick Haggery and C.D.Taylor, starts by showing the song's title on a photo in a travel brochure. It depicts the band first waiting on a pile of luggage at an airport after Belinda Carlisle arrives in a taxi. Gradually it changes to show them performing, then ends with a section in which they appear to be water-skiing in formation, as on the album cover. All the band members smile and mug for the camera in individual closeups. The photo then freezes and zooms out to be shown in another travel brochure on the floor, which an unseen janitor sweeps up, with other trash (most likely from the airport portion of the video).

It was shot in one very long day on a $50,000 budget, large for the time, and the band was coming off a debut album that had reached no. 1. "We still saw videos as an annoying waste of time," recalls Jane Wiedlin. "After seven or eight hours we sent out someone to sneak in booze." Kathy Valentine says they drank "lots of champagne. Lots." Wiedlin says the effects are evident during the closeups of the women at the end: "... if you look at our eyes, we're all so drunk. We didn't even try to make it look like we were really waterskiing."[3]

Track listing

7-inch and cassette single[4][5]

A. "Vacation" – 2:59 (2:55 on cassette)

B. "Beatnik Beach" – 2:52 (2:45 on cassette)

In popular culture

The song features prominently in "Vacation", the third episode of the fourth season of Nickelodeon cartoon Rugrats. The original song plays over a montage at the beginning of the episode, while character Angelica Pickles sings her own version with modified lyrics at the end of the episode.[6]

The song is also featured in Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, when George Bush is seen playing golf in the months before the 9/11 attacks.

The song is also played over the main credits of the 2019 film Spider-Man: Far From Home.[7]

The Textones version of the song is the theme of the Starz series Hightown (2020).[8]

The Go-Go's performed "Vacation", "Our Lips Are Sealed", and "We Got the Beat" during the 2021 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony.[9]

Charts

References

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