Sweet Freedom

December 9, 2025

Lou’s fondness for 1980’s Spring Break movies is well known to Vinyl Vogue readers (There are some of you out there, right?), but Lou also has a soft spot for 1980’s buddy cop movies. The Big Three are probably Beverly Hills Cop, 48 Hours, and Lethal Weapon. Buddy cop movies were huge. So much so that any pairing became fodder for a movie. Take Turner & Hooch, which paired Tom Hank with a dog, and Alien Nation which paired a human (James Caan) and an extraterrestrial (Mandy Patinkin). This is jump-the-shark type shit. Heyyyyyy!

Tango and Cash, Red Heat, and Stakeout are some other ones that Lou has time for. Lou has seen Midnight Run listed as a buddy cop movie. That might be stretching things a bit. Great movie though. One of the best action comedies of the entire decade. One movie that is underappreciated is Running Scaredstarring Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines. The plot: Two Chicago police officers (Crystal and Hines) attempt to bust a drug dealer (Jimmy Smits) before they retire. Joe Pantoliano has a great supporting role as Snake. As Rosanne Barr would say: “I know him”. The major bummer of the movie is not that Snake gets killed but that Crystal and Hines do not actually retire to Key West at the end of the movie. They stay on the police force. Wha? If given the chance to retire, Lou is going to retire. He is currently employed as a full-time boozer without health insurance. Not good.

The chemistry between Crystal and Hines is real. This may be Lou’s favorite pairing in a buddy cop movie. Almost as good as Hines and Mikhail Baryshnikov in White Nights. For what it is worth, Lou’s Mom saw that movie around 35 times in the theater and then bought the VHS and watched it another 100 times. This is where Lou gets his obsessive nature from. At one point, she bought every single softshell crab in town. But that is a story for another time.

Anyway, Running Scared is a quotable movie. Lou will often say “Ipswich clams” for absolutely no reason and he has this movie to blame. Lou also likes this exchange:

Lab Technician at Airport: This is real shit. This coke is pure shit.

Ray Hughes: It's good shit, right?

Lab Technician at Airport: I mean bad shit.

Ray Hughes: Bad shit like, "this shit is bad?"

Lab Technician at Airport: It's shit shit. This shit isn't worth shit. There's barely enough coke in here to attract the dogs. Anybody caught on the street with this would get killed.

Anna: You can't be a kid your whole life, you're gonna have to grow up!

Danny Costanzo: Why? I don't like grown ups.

Lou feels that. The quote page on IMDB is quite long, not Beverly Hills Cop long, but long enough.

Another element of all these buddy cop movies was the greatsoundtrack. To be honest, Running Scared does not measure up in that department although it was successful. It produced three top-15 songs in various charts. “Man Size Love” by Klymaxx and “I Know What I Want” by Patti LaBelle you might have forgotten. Lou has not forgotten “Say You Really Want Me” by Kim Wilde, which slipped into the top-50 in 1987. Lou loves himself some Kim Wilde. “Kids in America” rocks. Lou makes many a late-night date with his darling Kim on YouTube. But the real banger is Michael MacDonald’s “Sweet Freedom”, withthe accompanying video. Lou likes the women on roller skates in a cop outfits. It is the little things. Like the movie the video looks like they had a good time making it. It also features some of the worst lip-syncing of all time. Come on Mike, you are a professional.

Vinyl Vogue has a copy of the 12” version of “Sweet Freedom”. I have no idea why you would want this, but it is here if you do. “Sweet Freedom” was MacDonald last big chart hit. The song was a top-10 hit and even hit 17 on the Black Singles chart. As you all know, he had tons of hits before this, solo and with The Doobie Brothers. MacDonald is the Captain Stubbing of yacht rock and an icon in that regard. He is a meme basically. MacDonald seems to have a good sense of humor from the “Sweet Freedom” video, and he has to because SCTV, Family Guy, and just about everybody else has taken the piss out of him. Lou has not watched the documentary on yacht rock, but he has seen Donald Fagen of Steely Dan get all bent out of shape about being labelled a yacht rock band. MacDonald’s voice is all over some Steely Dan recordings and if you get in the ocean with Mike you are going to get wet. Seeing Fagen get his panties in a bunch gave Lou the giggles. What a high gloss, overproduced, soulless, pretentious load of crap Steely Dan is. So overrated. The only thing they get points for is their name, which comes from the dildo in William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch. The members of Steely Dan are well-read and have good taste. Lou knows this because they won’t let you forget it. That said, Lou likes Skunk Baxter. He seems like a good guy. A guy you would like to drink a beer with. Speaking of beers, late at night Lou throws the video for “Sweet Freedom” on the old YouTubeto see his roller girl. Sometimes it just hits the spot. That is all he needs. The 12” record not so much. But maybe you do. Have at it.