Boy Meets Girl
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- This article is about the band. For other uses, see Boy Meets Girl (disambiguation).
Boy Meets Girl is a duo consisting of keyboardist and vocalist George Merrill and singer Shannon Rubicam. They are known for their hit song "Waiting For A Star To Fall" from 1988. The song was involved in a "sample battle" in 2005, as two electronic music groups, Cabin Crew and Sunset Strippers both wanted to sample the song and remix it to become a hit again. Sunset Strippers, from the UK, won the right for the samples from the band's record label, releasing "Falling Stars". However, Cabin Crew from Australia, had met Boy Meets Girl, and they had re-recorded the vocals for the remixed song, entitled "Star To Fall" or "Star2Fall". In the same year, Scottish electronic musician Mylo had also used samples of the song, but mixing it with another song, "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes.
The members of Boy Meets Girl, George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam, wrote a number of songs for other artists. Most famous are their two number one hits written for Whitney Houston, "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)" and "How Will I Know". They also wrote the songs "Don't Tell Me We Have Nothing" and "Haunting Me" for Deniece Williams and the song "I Know You By Heart", performed by Bette Midler on the Beaches soundtrack. The duo also performed backing vocals on Deniece Williams' number one hit, "Let's Hear It For The Boy".
George Merrill also sang backing vocals on Bette Midler's Some People's Lives album.
On the American Billboard singles chart, "Waiting For A Star To Fall" peaked at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at #1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. It was also featured in the movie Three Men and a Little Lady. Reportedly the song was inspired by an actual falling star that Merrill and Rubicam saw at a Whitney Houston concert at the Greek Theatre. The duo submitted the song to Houston for consideration on her next album, but it was rejected, possibly because it was too "pop"-sounding and Houston's camp was looking to re-establish her credibility with R&B audiences at the time after her incredible string of Adult Contemporary-friendly pop smashes. In any event, it was Boy Meets Girl themselves who made the song a hit.
Boy Meets Girl's follow-up single, "Bring Down The Moon", peaked at #47 on the Billboard Hot 100 (and #28 Adult Contemporary). The album Reel Life contained both singles and spent several weeks at #50 in the United States and peaked at #75 in the United Kingdom.
Reel Life was preceded by a debut album called Boy Meets Girl in 1985 which contained the single "Oh Girl" (not the same song as the Chi-Lites classic). The single peaked at #39 and the album at #76.
Boy Meets Girl's third album, New Dream, was scheduled for release in 1990 but was shelved by RCA Records during a label reorganization. The album became a much sought-after collectible, with the promotional copy CD selling for more than $700 on eBay. It was finally released through the band's own website in 2004.
In the early 2000s, George Merrill and Shannon Rubicam divorced, but they continued their musical collaboration. In 2003 the duo released their fourth album, The Wonderground, on their own label, and arranged for RCA Records to re-release their two RCA albums. Recently they re-released their debut album recorded for A&M Records. In the works are new versions of their demo tapes done originally for Whitney Houston. The various artists album Number One With A Bullet also contains their original demo tape for "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)".
