For the longest of time I swore this was a single in late 88, early 89. It’s from 1990, that strange year of music that gave us pop rap via Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer.

I’m always conflicted with this song. I love the horn intro, that clockwork snare intro and the slow swelling synth that elevates the song to a rarefied atmosphere. Then the song never quite reaches the same height. Tremendous intro, ok song. I can’t stop being fascinated by it.

Like a lot of Collins’ work, the Mexican government used it (hopefully paying royalties) for government ads. Same as they did with Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, and Ray Lynch. So for a certain generation of Mexicans, this song is intertwined to those ads.

For this series of miniposts I’ve been re-discovering artists and their discographies. Hang in long enough is as good (or even better) than Something happened on the way to heaven, but I’ll give kudos to Something as it was the one track that made me check …But Seriously again. And, hey, Something happened on the way to heaven has a video with a dog. We all love them videos.

-Sam J. Valdés López