The 1980s File Feature
It Would Take A Strong Strong Man
Rick Astley and "It Would Take A Strong Strong Man": Consolidating a Transatlantic Career Rick Astley arrived in the American consciousness with an impact th…
01 The Story
Rick Astley and "It Would Take A Strong Strong Man": Consolidating a Transatlantic Career
Rick Astley arrived in the American consciousness with an impact that was difficult to overstate. His 1987 debut single "Never Gonna Give You Up," produced by the team of Stock Aitken Waterman and released through RCA Records, reached number one on both the UK Singles Chart and the Billboard Hot 100, a transatlantic double that announced Astley as one of the most commercially formidable new artists of the decade. The paradox of his success, that a young man from Newton-le-Willows in Lancashire was producing records that sounded like polished American soul and R&B, was part of the story that media coverage found irresistible and that audiences found appealing.
The Stock Aitken Waterman production factory, operating out of PWL Studios in London, had developed a distinctive approach to pop music that combined elements of Hi-NRG dance music, soul, and the kind of melodically emphatic pop that could function in both club and radio contexts. Their assembly-line approach to production was frequently criticized by music journalists but proved commercially devastating in its effectiveness. Astley's voice, a rich baritone that carried unusual warmth and authority for a performer who was only 21 when "Never Gonna Give You Up" was recorded, was the ideal vehicle for their approach.
"It Would Take A Strong Strong Man" was the third American single from Astley's debut album "Whenever You Need Somebody," released in 1987. The song was written by Stock Aitken Waterman and produced with the same attention to radio-ready sonic clarity that had characterized the first two singles. It debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on July 16, 1988, entering at number 78, and climbed steadily through the summer months to reach its peak position of number 10 on September 17, 1988, after 16 weeks on the chart.
Reaching number 10 on the Hot 100 with a third album single was a significant commercial achievement that confirmed Astley's staying power in the American market rather than positioning him as a one-hit wonder whose subsequent releases would inevitably underperform his debut. The consistent quality of the Stock Aitken Waterman production across multiple singles, combined with Astley's distinctive vocal identity, created a recognizable brand proposition that radio programmers and listeners could engage with predictably.
The single's trajectory through the summer of 1988 benefited from the same radio promotion infrastructure that had supported Astley's earlier American releases. RCA Records' promotion team had developed relationships with program directors at Top 40 and adult contemporary radio stations across the country during the campaign for "Never Gonna Give You Up" and "Whenever You Need Somebody," and those relationships could be leveraged to give the third single a promotional foundation that independent or less established acts could not have matched.
Astley performed the song on a number of American television programs during the promotional campaign for "Whenever You Need Somebody," including appearances that brought him before the kind of mainstream pop audience that consumed music through television performance rather than radio alone. His performance skills, which complemented the studio craft of the Stock Aitken Waterman productions without depending on it entirely, helped establish him as a credible live artist rather than simply a studio creation.
The summer of 1988 was a highly competitive period on the Hot 100, with significant commercial activity from artists including INXS, George Michael, and Terence Trent D'Arby competing for chart real estate. That "It Would Take A Strong Strong Man" reached the top ten during that period reflected the genuine commercial magnetism of Astley's voice and the consistent quality of the Stock Aitken Waterman production rather than simply favorable chart conditions.
Astley's subsequent career saw both continued success and an eventual retreat from the music industry before a celebrated return in the mid-2000s. The trajectory of his early American success, from number one debut to sustained top-ten follow-ups, placed him among the more commercially reliable British pop exports of the 1980s and established the foundation for the cultural second life he would experience when "Never Gonna Give You Up" became the centerpiece of the "rickrolling" internet phenomenon decades later. "It Would Take A Strong Strong Man" represents one of the cleaner examples of his original commercial moment.
02 Song Meaning
Devotion, Endurance, and the Masculine Emotional Ideal in "It Would Take A Strong Strong Man"
"It Would Take A Strong Strong Man" positions its narrator as someone making an argument about what genuine love requires, specifically arguing that true devotion demands a form of strength that goes beyond physical or conventional definitions of masculine toughness. The song's central claim is that loving someone with the depth and commitment the narrator brings is itself a form of strength, that emotional availability and persistent devotion are more demanding and more admirable than the emotional invulnerability that alternative cultural models of masculinity promoted.
This thematic positioning was not accidental. Stock Aitken Waterman were skilled at writing within established pop song conventions while introducing inflections that updated those conventions for contemporary audiences, and the reframing of masculine strength as emotional depth rather than emotional distance tapped into cultural conversations about gender roles and relationship expectations that were live in popular culture during the late 1980s. The song participated in a broader pop music project of expanding what male performers were permitted to express and claim as admirable.
Astley's vocal delivery was essential to making this argument credible. A performance that had seemed merely sentimental or melodramatic would have undermined the claim to strength by suggesting that the narrator was in fact weak in precisely the conventional sense the song was redefining. Astley's baritone carried enough authority and assurance that the emotional expression it conveyed felt chosen rather than involuntary, which is what the song required: a performance of deliberate emotional commitment rather than helpless feeling.
The song belongs to a tradition of male soul and R&B performance in which demonstrating the capacity for deep feeling is itself an assertion of distinction and worth. That tradition runs through artists from Marvin Gaye to Luther Vandross, and the Stock Aitken Waterman production drew on the sonic vocabulary of that tradition even as it delivered it through a British pop architecture. Astley's affinity for that tradition was genuine; he has spoken in interviews about his admiration for classic American soul, and that affinity informed the emotional sincerity of his best performances in this period.
Within the context of Astley's catalog, "It Would Take A Strong Strong Man" develops the thematic territory staked out by "Never Gonna Give You Up" and its declaration of unconditional commitment. The first single established the emotional baseline; this third single deepened it by introducing the claim that such commitment requires and demonstrates strength. Together, the singles constitute something approaching a sustained argument about what relationships built on genuine emotional engagement look like, an argument delivered through pop song conventions but with enough internal consistency to reward attention as a body of thematic work.
The song's commercial success in the American market suggested that the argument resonated with listeners across demographic categories. Adult contemporary radio's demographic, which skewed toward listeners in their late twenties and thirties who were actively navigating relationship formation and maintenance, was particularly well-positioned to receive the song's claims about what lasting commitment requires. The alignment between thematic content and target demographic was one of the factors that made the record commercially durable through the summer of 1988.
Retrospective assessments of Astley's early career have noted the consistency of the emotional and thematic register across his Stock Aitken Waterman productions, an consistency that distinguished his work from some of the more formulaic output that the production team generated for other artists. "It Would Take A Strong Strong Man" is among the stronger examples of that register, a song whose thematic seriousness was matched by the quality of its execution.
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