"Toy Soldiers" is a song by Martika appearing on her
eponymous debut album in 1989 as a ballad. The single was a
number-one hit in the United States.
Martika is the only one singing throughout the song,
although the chorus of the song consisted of some of Martika's
former castmates from
Kids Incorporated, including Stacy Ferguson, Rahsaan
Patterson, Renee Sands, Shanice Wilson, Jennifer Love Hewitt,
and Devyn Puett as backup vocalists.
Years later, Martika claimed that the inspiration for the
song came from a friend who was battling cocaine addiction at
the time, according to an episode of VH-1's
Pop-Up Videoin which the video was featured, the friend
in question ultimately beat the addiction.
However this claim was retrospective, as neither Martika nor
Columbia made any such claim at the time of the song's release
in 1989, and the song's 'anti-drug' reputation was little more
than a happy coincidence - in reality it was a standard
teen-love song theme about being over-attached to a
uninterested, abusive 'bad-boy' boyfriend.
At the time of the song's release, there was growing public
concern about drug addiction in the young, and a number of
campaigns throughout most of the world during the AIDS crisis
warning of the dangers posed by discarded needles, emphasising
that even without the needle a used syringe was still dangerous
to a child, who might wish to play with one as if it were an
old fashioned peg doll or toy soldier.
Songs comparing heroin addiction to an abusive love affair
have been a music staple for decades (eg. The Stranglers 1979
single 'Don't Bring Harry'), and 'Toy Soldiers' motifs of
emptiness replacing pain, addiction to something they know is
not good for them, and a fear of the consequences if it is not
ended (along with the children singing 'won't you come along
and play with me?') resulted in the song's heavy rotation by
radio and TV as anti-drugs due to the ambiguous nature of the
lyrics.
The song spent two weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot
100 in the U.S. and New Zealand while reaching the top ten in
the UK. When it spent its first week at number one, it had
leapt over Madonna's "Express Yourself" and kept that song from
reaching the top spot. On Billboard's year-end chart for 1989,
"Toy Soldiers" placed number 29. It was Martika's only
number-one single in the U.S., and her highest-ranking single
in the UK. The single was certified Gold in the United States
by the RIAA.
In March and April 2009, VH1 ran a countdown of the
100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders of the 80s. "Toy Soldiers"
placed at #67 on the countdown despite the fact that Martika
had three other Top 40 hits: "More Than You Know" (#18); "I
Feel the Earth Move" (#25); and "Love ... Thy Will Be Done"
(#10).
In
The Simpsons18th season episode "G.I. (Annoyed Grunt)"
the music playing during the assault course is "Toy
Soldiers".