Magic Power

Triumph's enduring hit

So following up on the Triumph kick, this is a song you probably know as it was a huge hit for the band. It made it to #8 on the Billboard rock chart - not too shabby for a power trio from Toronto.

She's young now, she's wild now, she wants to be free
She gets the magic power of the music from me

This is off of Allied Forces, considered the definitive Triumph album. The full band wrote the music, but the lyric was Rik Emmett’s, who told Songfacts in an interview: “I wrote it about myself as a 9-year-old with a transistor radio, and then I changed the pronouns to she and her.” Like Rush’s Spirit of Radio, it calls back to the time when you would wait up to hear your song on the radio and the sheer power of music to free you from the bonds of the everyday.

The original video for the song is whack. Up to that point the band had done straight live videos but came up against the era of concept videos. And it’s a concept alright. In the documentary Triumph: Rock and Roll Machine, Gil Moore watches it again for the first time in decades and says, “That was a complete, unmitigated disaster. We come to shoot the video and there’s a big white guitar that looks like a birthday cake.” They didn’t want to do it, they thought it was stupid but the set had already been built and they gamely went ahead.

The guitar becomes a spaceship that eventually ends up at a woman’s bedside. As Moore puts it, “It’s logical, right? If you had a spaceship, where else would you take it? The minute it came out we said ‘Oh no. We have to pull this.’ Want to talk Spinal Tap? This was serious Spinal Tap.”

I can’t find out the name of the director who came up with it but would love to know. So if anyone has any info, pass it along.

I have a soft spot for wacky 80s video so wanted to share. The band quickly replaced it with a live video that is now the official video.

Enjoy your song of the day!