One Hit History: Chad Cochran Nerds Out on Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science”

Chad Cochran, AKA Cowtown Chad, is a noted rock photographer and visual artist from Cleveland. His latest project, I Didn’t Want to Tell You, focuses on normalizing the conversation about mental health.

This week on One Hit History, Chad nerds out with Sloane over his favorite one hit wonder — “She Blinded Me With Science” originally released in 1982 by Thomas Dolby. Part of Dolby’s appeal is over his pure love of music in all its forms, which eventually led him away from the stage and into being an audio professor, and founding a technology company that created the iconic and polyphonic Nokia ringtone that was part of the soundtrack for the 90s.

List of links

• Chad Cochran AKA Cowtownchad
• I Didn’t Want to Tell You featured in No Depression print magazine
• Thomas Dolby “She Blinded Me With Science”
• “She Blinded Me With Science” US long version video
• One Hit Wonders playlist on Spotify
• Thomas Dolby’s profile at Johns Hopkins University
• Challenging Audio to Take the Next Step
• The Nokia ringtone
• Max Headroom
• Science! Guy is Magnus Alfred Pyke, TV presenter and scientist
• Outtakes, sneak peeks, and bonus episodes

Music mentions

• Oingo Boingo
• Foreigner
• Soft Boys
• Chic/Nile Rodgers
• Orleans
• Roger Waters/Pink Floyd
• Def Leppard
• George Clinton
• Duran Duran — Annie Zaleski (author of Duran Duran Rio book)
• Flaming Lips
• Talking Heads

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Transcript

Sloane Spencer
I should maybe not tell a funny story on myself. So I got into a huge bar disagreement with somebody about “She Blinded Me with Science” because the person that was talking to me kept insisting that it was by Oingo Boingo, and I kept saying, “It’s Thomas Dolby!” And I was like, ready to get in a fist fight in a bar with some huge dude that this was Thomas Dolby and not Oingo Boingo. I should probably be way more embarrassed about that than I am....

This is Sloane Spencer. Y’all might know me from my decades in radio, and you might know me from my pioneering podcast, long form interview, conversations with “musicians you don’t know you love yet” called Country Fried Rock. And also I’m an adult living with ADD — and that means that when I get inspiration, oh my God, I’m going to do four things, and I’m going to do them all in the next 48 hours.

And that is where this new podcast is. It’s called One Hit History, where I talk with music people about their favorite one hit wonder. So of course I hit up some of my favorite friends first to get us started. (I also like alliteration. If you don’t know that already.) You can support us on Patreon at patreon.com/onehithistory, where you’ll find bonus content and episode outtakes — and no, I’m not afraid to make fun of myself.

Or just listen on our website OneHitHistory.com or your favorite podcast app. It seems a little silly, but especially for a new program like this, those five star ratings and reviews really help.
So we’re going to chat with Chad Cochran. You might know him better as CowtownChad, a noted rock photographer and visual artist, been around the scene for quite some time with some amazing work and an incredible multimedia project called “I Didn’t Want to Tell You.” Let’s have him tell you a little bit about what’s going on these days.

Chad Cochran
Right. And Hey, thanks for having me. I’m excited to do this One Hit Wonders. It’s one of those things that I’ve alway...