By Anthony Barboza,Contributor,Jim Clash

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(Original Caption) Washington: Fawn Hall, former personal secretary to Lt. Col. Oliver North, listens to Plato Cacheris, her attorney, during the House and Senate Iran-Contra hearings 6/9.
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Truth is stranger than fiction, or so they say. I hate to use a cliche like that, but this tale warrants it.

In the late 1980s, there was the infamous Iran-Contra Scandal, tame by today’s standards. It’s complicated, but U.S. National Security Council staff member Oliver North was involved in covering up a secret arms-for-hostages scheme to use government money to back the Nicaraguan contras. He was ultimately caught and convicted of three felonies, and given a suspended jail sentence.

Complicit in the coverup was North’s pretty blonde personal secretary, Fawn Hall, a part-time model. Hall had shredded a slew of documents relating to North’s misdeed, but was not prosecuted in exchange for her Congressional testimony.

The scandal did not go unnoticed by the music industry. A business rock group called The VPs recorded a parody song, “Ollie’s Girl,” to the tune of the 1962 Marcie Blaine hit, “Bobby’s Girl.” In the song, they implied that, in addition to the scandal, North and Hall were having an affair. North was married at the time.

(Original Caption) 7/7/1987 – Washington DC: Oliver North is sworn in on his first day of testimony at the Iran Contra hearings. UPI color slide of PH: L. Mark
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A sample of the lyrics: “…I want the job where we break all the rules/I want to be Ollie’s Girl, Ollie’s Girl/Do my nails and shred papers that’s me/And if I was Ollie’s Girl, if I was Ollie’s Girl/What a faithful working girl I’d be…”

The VPs, businesspeople on Wall Street and Madison Avenue by day and rockers by night, performed their parodies in the 1980s, including “Ollie’s Girl,” at corporate parties and in New York nightclubs, including the Limelight and The Saint, formerly the Fillmore East. They also recorded three LPs, a music video and TV commercial after having raised $100,000 from the Wall Street investment firm D.H. Blair.

Subjects they covered other Iran-Contra included the stock market crash of 1987 (“Stockbroker On The Line”), merger-mania in the advertising world (“Madison Avenue Man”), Jim and Tammy Fay Bakker’s PTL scandal (“Act Religiously”) and the obsession with yuppy greed and materialism (“Money” and “My Corporation”).

Most of the lyrics were written by more than one band member, but “Ollie’s Girl” was penned solely by lead vocalist Jennifer Hoadley, then an advertising account executive. For whatever reason, the scandal had particularly resonated with her.

Portrait of the American New Wave parody band The VPs, New York, mid to late 1980s, vocalist Jennifer Hoadley center. (Photo by Anthony Barboza/Getty Images)
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The tune received significant airplay on college stations and in the morning time slots at major pop radio stations nationwide.

Lo and behold, North and Hall in a secret private ceremony wed last month, giving credence to The VPs’ romantic suspicions. Whether the two were a bonafied item in the 1980s is only speculation, of course, but four decades later they clearly are.

A spokesperson for The VPs said that maybe the band should rerelease “Ollie’s Girl,” which was included on their LP “1988 Annual Report.” He confirmed that all of the band members are still alive. “Perhaps we could reunite as The Sr. VPs or something,” he joked.

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