Songfacts®:

• Harry Houdini was a famous escape artist who serves as a metaphor in many songs, including this one by Kon Kan, a Canadian dance music outfit most famous for their song "I Beg Your Pardon." The group is really just Barry Harris, who created it and hired Kevin Wynne to sing on tracks from their first album, Move To Move, including this one. In a Songfacts interview with Harris, he told the story behind this song.
  
  "I don't know why I came up with Harry Houdini," he said. "I remember going for a walk in the summer of '88 and I heard the musical hook in my head and instantly came up with the melody and lyrics, 'I wanna be like Harry Houdini, and be the one to make the great escape.'
  
  Then I asked myself what does that actually mean and where would the lyrics go from there, so I kind of figured 'escapism' of course, perhaps from a bad relationship, perhaps from life's anxiety or angst. Once again, I liked the idea of sad or depressing lyrics on top of happy music. After all, it was the '80s!"
• The single is titled "Harry Houdini" but on the album it's listed as "Arts In D Minor/Harry Houdini." The "arts" part is a tribute to Barry Harris' father, Arthur, and the "D Minor" is just having a little fun, likening the song to a grand composition like Bach's "Toccata And Fugue In D Minor."
• That rising "ahhh... ahhhhhh" vocal that comes midway through the song is interpolated from "White Lines" by Grandmaster Flash. The vocal melody in the chorus ("I wanna be just like Harry Houdini") is lifted from "The Tide Is High" by Blondie.
• Barry Harris produced this song with Jon Lind, who also sang backup along with Julia and Maxine Waters of the renown Waters family singers. Julia sings the hook and also appears in the video.
  
  "When I demoed 'Harry Houdini' earlier in summer 1988 I had a few different session singers come in to the Hamilton studio and sing that gospel-like wailing outro, and none of them could nail it, as it's a difficult part to sing," Harris told Songfacts. "You really need a GREAT singer to nail it, which of course Julia did like a simple walk in the park!"
• The music video is a playful romp using composite backgrounds and archive footage of Harry Houdini. In 2023, Barry Harris turned it into a lyric video by adding text on top of it.