I was excited to see this week’s music genre for Song Lyric Sunday. Jim Adams, our host, has asked for Bluegrass. I have chosen the song, Annabel Lee, by an artist I have come to really like. Sarah Jarosz, an American folk and bluegrass singer. She was inspired by the poem called ‘Annabel Lee’ by American author, Edgar Allen Poe. It was his last complete poem. Like many of Poe’s poems, it explores the theme of the death of a beautiful woman. The narrator, who fell in love with Annabel Lee when they were young, has a love for her so strong that even angels are envious. He retains his love for her after her death. There has been debate over who, if anyone, was the inspiration for “Annabel Lee”. Though many women have been suggested, Poe’s wife Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe is one of the more credible candidates. Written in 1849, it was not published until shortly after Poe’s death that same year. Like all good mysteries there are local legends. Jarosz’s lyrics are very similar to the poem.
The Song
The song is from, ‘Follow Me Down’, the second studio album by American folk and bluegrass singer-songwriter Sarah Jarosz, released on May 17, 2011 on Sugar Hill Records. It was recorded and mixed at Minutia Studios and mastered at The Mastering Lab in Nashville, by Gary Paczosa with additional engineering by Brandon Bell. In 2012, the song “Come Around” was nominated for Song of the Year at the Americana Music Honors & Awards.
Annabel Lee is the singer’s interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe’s last published poem about young, doomed lovers in a kingdom by the sea.
Some say that Poe, who served a brief stint at Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island, was inspired by a Lowcountry tale. Legend has it that a young soldier fell in love with a girl named Annabel Lee. For several months they were inseparable, despite her father’s disapproval, but when the man was shipped out of Charleston, Annabel died of Yellow Fever. He returned to say his goodbyes, but the girl’s father wouldn’t allow him into the funeral. Some say Annabel’s ghost still haunts the Unitarian Cemetery, where she was buried.
Granted, there’s no real proof that Poe had ever heard the legend, and some argue the poem was based on his relationship with his own wife. It went on to inspire Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita, which was originally going to be titled The Kingdom by the Sea.
Wherever the chain of inspiration came from, Jarosz performed her fresh interpretation of the haunting poem just a few blocks away from from the cemetery where Annabel’s ghost is said to reside in Charleston, SC.
Our friend Clive, from Take it Easy, has offered up this week’s Song Lyric Sunday prompt and it is “Songs with a recognizable intro”. I have chosen Reflections by the Supremes. The intro to this song is memorable, well at least to me. The album Reflections was released in 1967. The song was also used as the theme for a TV drama here in the States called China Beach about the Vietnam War. It ran from late 80s to early 90s and was the springboard for some now recognizable.actors.
The Song
“Reflections” was written by the Motown songwriting team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland. In a Songfacts interview with Dozier, he explained: “It’s about when the love has gone bad, or when things have changed in life. One thing in life that’s ever changing is tomorrow is always different from today. Things change for many reasons, and you have to be aware of why, and what is happening around you. You have to adapt to the changes in life. That’s what that was about: your reflection on how things used to be, can be and will be, hopefully.
It’s all about hope, too. The main theme of that song is hope: although things have come to pass, you have to start changing, remembering the old to get involved with a new approach in life.” This song tells the story of a woman who looks back in anguish at her lost love, wondering what could have been had things worked out. But the song was directed in some ways at Motown head Barry Gordy, with the same sentiment.
Starting with “Where Did Our Love Go” in 1964, the Holland-Dozier-Holland team wrote nine #1 hits for The Supremes as well as many big songs for The Four Tops, Martha & the Vandellas, and several other acts on the label. After a few years of runaway success, the three writers demanded publishing rights to their songs, but were rebuffed by Gordy. This was when they wrote “Reflections,” which pleased Gordy by providing yet another hit for The Supremes, but portended the departure of Holland-Dozier-Holland, who left a short time later, breaking their contract in the process. The legal tussle between Gordy and his former star writers stretched on for many years.
Sonically, this was a departure for The Supremes, with no saxophone or prominent electric guitar backbeat. It retained the sturdy bassline of James Jamerson, but featured a Wurlitzer electric piano by Earl Van Dyke and tambourine by Jack Ashford. Pistol Allen was the drummer and Joe Messina added guitar. The oscillator-generated sound effects also appear throughout the track.
This was the first foray for The Supremes into psychedelic pop, a sound fully realized by The Beatles a month earlier when they released their Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
“Reflections” has some mind-bending lyrics:
Trapped in a world that’s a distorted reality
It also opens with some trippy sound effects that were created with a custom oscillator designed by one of The Funk Brothers, who were session musicians for most Motown songs of the period.
This was released during The Summer of Love (1967) when the Vietnam War was raging. This made it an appropriate choice for the theme song of the TV series China Beach, which was set in Vietnam during the war. The series ran on ABC from 1988-1991
The Lyrics
Through the mirror of my mind
Time after time
I see reflections of you and me
Reflections of
The way life used to be
Reflections of
The love you took from me
Oh, I'm all alone now
No love to shield me
Trapped in a world
That's a distorted reality
Happiness you took from me
And left me all alone
With only memories
Through the mirror of my mind
Through all these tears that I'm crying
Reflects a hurt I can't control
Although you're gone
I keep holding on
To those happy times
Oh, girl when you were mine
As I peer through the windows
Of lost time
Keeping looking over my yesterdays
And all the love I gave all in vain
(All the love) All the love
That I've wasted
(All the tears) All the tears
That I've tasted
All in vain
Through the hollow of my tears
I see a dream that's lost
From the hurt baby
That you have caused
Everywhere I turn
Seems like everything I see
Reflects a hurt I can't control
In you I put
All my hope and trust
Right before my eyes
My whole world has turned to dust
Reflections of
The love you took from
Reflections of
The way life used to be
In you I put
All my hope and trust
Right before my eyes
My whole world has turned to dust
Now baby, why did you do it?
Reflections
Writer/s: DAVID BRYAN BENOIT
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind
Courtesy of Songfacts
This week our host for Song Lyric Sunday, Jim Adams, has given us the prompts, Hug, Kiss and Embrace. I have chosen Kiss From A Rose, by Seal. This was an easy pick for me as I just happened to hear it again today. I have always liked it as it reminds me of a visit back home to the UK in the nineties. It was such a great trip and this song was being played everywhere. On checking I did notice that I had featured this song more than three years ago for another SLS prompt. I think enough time has passed and that it really doesn’t matter if I choose it again, right?
Have a great Sunday.
.
The Song
One of the more mysterious songs ever written, there has been much speculation as to the meaning of “Kiss From A Rose” – many think it has something to do with drugs, while others hear it as an expression of love or a journey to the afterlife. Seal has never explained what the song is about, offering only that there was “some kind of relationship that inspired the lyrics.” Seal bucked convention by not including printed lyrics with the album, something he did because he didn’t want to wash away anyone’s interpretation. He also says that his songs often mean more than one thing, so attributing a meaning would be too simplistic. In lieu of lyrics, Seal wrote a screed on the subject that went with the album. “I think it’s the general vibe of what I’m saying that is important and not the exact literal translation,” he wrote. “The song is always larger in the listener’s mind because with it they attach imagery which is relative to their own personal experience. So it is your perception of what I’m saying rather than what I actually way that is the key.”
Seal wrote this song sometime around 1988 when he was living in a squat in Kensal Green, London. He says it was a liberating time, as it was before he had a record deal and there was no pressure on him. He didn’t know how to play any instruments, so he sang the instrumental parts onto a 4-track tape recorder as an experiment. He tossed the tape aside and thought nothing of it; when he recorded his 1991 debut album, he didn’t even consider it. The song was revived two years later when Seal played if for his best friend, who told Seal’s producer, Trevor Horn, about it. Horn made Seal play it for him, and he liked what he heard. They recorded the song for his second album (Seal, 1994), but they still nearly tanked it. “I thought it was too flowery and that it didn’t fit,” Seal told The Guardian. They were going to pull it from the tracklist, but reconsidered after their friend Lynne Franks heard the album-in-progress and said she liked “that song that was something about a rose.”
The song was released as a single in the UK, where it went to #20 in July 1994. In America, the song didn’t get noticed until it played under the end credits of the movie Batman Forever and was included on the soundtrack. The film was released in May 1995, nearly a year after Seal’s album was issued. The movie appearance sparked demand for the song in the US; it was issued as a single there in June 1995 and climbed to #1 in August.Batman Forever was distributed by Warner Bros., the same conglomerate that owned Seal’s US label, Sire Records. The song was submitted for a love scene featuring Nicole Kidman’s Dr. Chase Meridian character and Val Kilmer’s Batman, but the film’s director, Joel Schumacher, decided it was a better fit under the end credits.
Do you hear the lyric as “kiss from a rose on a grave?” If so, you’re not the only one, but it’s really “kiss from a rose on a gray.” David Sancious, who played keyboards on Seal’s 1998 album Human Being and joined him on the subsequent tour, found out from the source. “We were having lunch somewhere one day and he explained it to me,” Sancious told Songfacts. “It was a poetic thing, just a little taste of poetry that happened to sound like something else.”
With its curious waltz time, lavish harmonies and epic sound proportions, “Kiss From A Rose” has a very different sound and stood out on the radio, where many stations were willing to play it. In the US, it was a #1 hit on the Adult Contemporary charts for 12 weeks.
This won Grammy Awards in 1996 for Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance. It wasn’t eligible for an Oscar because the song appeared on Seal’s album before it was used in the film.
Ba-ya-ya, ba-da, ba-da-da-da, ba-ya-ya
Ba-ya-ya, ba-da, ba-da-da-da, ba-ya-ya
Ba-ya-ya, ba-da, ba-da-da-da, ba-ya-ya
Ba-ya-ya, ba-da, ba-da-da-da, ba-ya-ya
There used to be a greying tower alone on the sea
You became the light on the dark side of me
Love remained a drug that's the high and not the pill
But did you know that when it snows
My eyes become large and
The light that you shine can't be seen?
Baby, I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the grey
Ooh, the more I get of you, the stranger it feels, yeah
And now that your rose is in bloom
A light hits the gloom on the grey
Ba-ya-ya, ba-da, ba-da-da-da, ba-ya-ya
Ba-ya-ya, ba-da, ba-da-da-da, ba-ya-ya
There is so much a man can tell you, so much he can say
You remain my power, my pleasure, my pain
Baby, to me, you're like a growing addiction that I can't deny
Won't you tell me, is that healthy, baby?
But did you know that when it snows
My eyes become large and
The light that you shine can't be seen?
Baby, I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the grey
Ooh, the more I get of you, the stranger it feels, yeah (yeah)
Now that your rose is in bloom
A light hits the gloom on the grey
I've been kissed by a rose on the grey
I've been kissed by a rose on the grey
And if I should fall, will it all go away? (I've been kissed by a rose on the grey)
I've been kissed by a rose on the grey
There is so much a man can tell you, so much he can say
You remain my power, my pleasure, my pain
To me, you're like a growing addiction that I can't deny (yeah)
No won't you tell me, is that healthy, baby?
But did you know that when it snows
My eyes become large and
The light that you shine can't be seen?
Baby, I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the grey
Ooh, the more I get of you, the stranger it feels, yeah
Now that your rose is in bloom
A light hits the gloom on the grey
Yes, I compare you to a kiss from a rose on the grey
Ooh, the more I get of you, the stranger it feels, yeah (yeah)
And now that your rose is in bloom
A light hits the gloom on the grey
Ba-ya-ya, ba-da, ba-da-da-da, ba-ya-ya
Now that your rose is in bloom
A light hits the gloom on the grey
Writer/s: Henry Olusegun Adeola Samuel
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind
Amy Winehouse – September 24, 1983 – July 23, 2011
Jim Adams, our host for Song Lyric Sunday, has prompted us with “Members of the Died at the Age of 27 Club”. We are to choose a song by an artist who, you guessed it, died at the age of 27. Surprisingly there are quite a few. I picked Amy Winehouse and her memorable and fitting song, “Rehab”.
The Song & Artist
This song is autobiographical. Many successful musicians are haunted by their own personal demons of drink and drugs, and Winehouse is no exception. In February 2007 her father gave a candid interview to the Sun newspaper in which he denied that his daughter was an alcoholic, although he admitted that like many single women of her age she sometimes overdid the drink. On one occasion, after splitting up with her boyfriend, she fell over and hit her head.
Her previous management company wanted her to go into rehab but she said she didn’t need to. Her father agreed, adding that she wasn’t an alcoholic but had been drinking too much because she was lovesick, and “You can’t go into rehab for that.” Alcoholics drink everyday, he said, and his daughter didn’t. Hence the line: “They tried to make me go to rehab, I said no, no, no.” Amy Winehouse was asked by The Daily Mail on August 3, 2007 how she writes songs. Said Winehouse: “With ‘Rehab’ I was walking down the street with Mark Ronson, who produced my last album. I just sang the hook out loud. It was quite silly really.”
She was then asked, “Did you sing the ‘no no no’ bit as well?'”
“Yeah, I sang the whole line exactly as it turned out on the record! Mark laughed and asked me who wrote it because he liked it. I told him that I’d just made it up but that it was true and he encouraged me to turn it into a song, which took me five minutes. It wasn’t hard. It was about what my old management company (run by former Spice Girls manager Simon Fuller) wanted me to do.” On August 14, 2007, Winehouse entered The Causeway Retreat, a rehab center in Essex, England, with her new husband (and fellow addict), Blake Fielder. Addiction specialists know that admitting a couple to rehab together is a bad idea, but The Causeway was not an ethical institution: it was shut down amid a host of violations in 2010.
In the documentary Amy, Fielder is shown at the facility badgering Winehouse, putting a video camera to her face and asking her to sing “the new, updated version of ‘Rehab,'” presumably making a joke out of it. She refuses.
Winehouse did a few more stints in rehab to treat her drug and alcohol addiction, but it was ultimately unsuccessful. She was found dead in her London home on July 23, 2011. This won the 2007 Ivor Novello Award for Best Contemporary Song. At the 2008 Grammy awards, this won for Song Of The Year, Female Pop Vocal Performance and Record Of The Year. Winehouse also won for Best New Artist, and performed a medley of songs that were televised from London. Ronson won for producer of the year.
Backstage at the Grammy ceremony Mark Ronson recalled to Billboard magazine what it was like playing “Rehab” for Winehouse’s A&R for the first time. “About the first 15 seconds in, he said ‘Rewind, rewind!’ I didn’t think there would be dollar signs lighting up.” The lines, “I’d rather be at home with Ray” and “There’s nothing you can teach me that I can’t learn from Mr. Hathaway” are references to two of Winehouse’s soul music inspirations: Ray Charles and Donny Hathaway. Hathaway is best known for his duets with Roberta Flack: “Where Is The Love?” and “The Closer I Get To You.” Winehouse’s label Island Records originally didn’t foresee this song’s success. Island Records president Darcus Beese explained in a Genius annotation:
“When ‘Rehab’ dropped it was just like a newspaper being lit. I wasn’t expecting this song to be the one that did it. We wanted to come in with a cool angle. We thought putting Ghostface Killa on ‘You Know I’m No Good’ would be the big hit. It wasn’t until people heard ‘Rehab’ that they really got it.”
The Lyrics
[Chorus]
They tried to make me go to rehab
I said, "no, no, no"
Yes, I been black
But when I come back, you'll know, know, know
I ain't got the time
And if my daddy thinks I'm fine
He's tried to make me go to rehab
I won't go, go, go
I'd rather be at home with a Ray
I ain't got seventy days
'Cause there's nothing, there's nothing you can teach me
That I can't learn from Mr. Hathaway
I didn't get a lot in class
But I know we don't come in a shot glass
[Chorus]
The man said, "why do you think you here?"
I said, "I got no idea."
I'm gonna, I'm gonna lose my baby
So I always keep a bottle near
He said, "I just think you're depressed."
This, me, yeah, baby, and the rest
They tried to make me go to rehab
But I said, "no, no, no"
Yes, I been black
But when I come back, you'll know, know, know
I don't ever want to drink again
I just, oh, I just need a friend
I'm not gonna spend ten weeks
Have everyone think I'm on the mend
And it's not just my pride
It's just till these tears have dried
[Chorus]
Written by Amy Winehouse
Learn more about Amy Winehouse's life here
Courtesy of Songfacts
This week Jim Adams, our host of Song Lyric Sunday, has handed the prompt reins to fellow blogger Angie from the blog King Ben’s Grandma, She has given us “Sweet, Honey, Sugar, Candy and Chocolate”, Plenty of songs out there to fit today’s theme. I have picked Sweet Love by Anita Baker. A personal favorite from the 80s.
The Song
“Sweet Love” is a song by American R&B singer and songwriter Anita Baker from her second studio album, Rapture (1986). It was written by Anita Baker, Louis A. Johnson, and Gary Bias, and produced by Michael J. Powell. It was released in July 1986, as the album’s first single.
The song was Baker’s first big hit single, peaking at number two on the US Billboard R&B chart, number three on the US Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, and number eight on the US Billboard Hot 100 in the fall of 1986. In the UK, it reached number 13 on the UK Singles Chart and peaked at number 21 on Canada’s Top Singles chart.
“Sweet Love” won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song at the 29th Annual Grammy Awards (1987).
Daryl Easlea of the BBC said that Baker’s voice “rings like a bell”, and that “Sweet Love” is one of the three most memorable tracks on Rapture. He felt that the lyrics might have sounded trite if sung by a different artist, but that Baker imbued them with “so much passion and wonderment” that they sound like “old love sonnets” brought back to life.
Baker won two Grammys at the 29th Annual Grammy Awards (1987). “Sweet Love” was selected as Best R&B Song, earning her (along with Gary Bias and Louis Johnson) a songwriting award. Also, the album containing this song, Rapture, won in the category Best Female R&B Vocal performance.
This week, for Song Lyric Sunday, Jim Adams has asked us to find songs that never made it to Number One. We all know of some that fall into this category but in my search for a favorite of mine, “Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin, I remembered why they never really had any number 1 singles. They just didn’t cut any. They were strictly an album and live performance group. Enjoy reading about it below.
How Did Led Zeppelin Never Have a No. 1 Single?
There are only a few bands that have sold more records than Led Zeppelin. The list starts with The Beatles (183 million albums in the U.S.) and continues with heavyweights like Elvis (No. 3) and the Eagles (No. 4). Garth Brooks (No. 2) is also on this list.
After that comes Zeppelin at No. 5 with a certified 111 million records sold in America. Whatever way you want to measure the band’s popularity, you’ll find plenty of data backing up Zeppelin.
Going by No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200 chart, you’ll find the band with seven. Led Zeppelin II, the band’s biggest chart hit, hung around for 117 weeks after spending the better part of two months at No. 1. Then there’s Led Zeppelin IV, which sold over 23 million copies.
In fact, there’s only one milestone the band didn’t claim over the years: a No. 1 hit single on the Billboard Hot 100. Here’s how Zeppelin never made its way there.
When you look at a band like The Beatles, you see a group built for the Hot 100 charts — especially early on in the Fab Four’s time together. Their songs were short and catchy, simple and bright. Maybe “she loves you,” but either they’d “wanna hold your hand” so you might “love me do.”
Led Zeppelin’s debut album kicked off with the riotous “Good Times Bad Times” and built up to haunting “Dazed and Confused” on Side One. These songs weren’t built for a pop marketplace. Though Atlantic released “Good Times Bad Times” as a single in 1969, no one knew Zeppelin at the time.
From early on, the band considered itself a band that sold albums, not singles. When “Whole Lotta Love” became a centerpiece of the band’s live shows, the record company wanted to release it as a single. The only problem? It was over five-and-a-half minutes long.
Meanwhile, its psychedelic middle section scared AM radio stations enough to warrant an edit of the song. (FM stations played it in its entirety.) But the band hated the edited version, turning them off singles further.
While “Whole Lotta Love” sold over 900,000 copies and peaked at No. 4, the band refused to release it in the UK.
While conventional wisdom said you needed singles and constant TV appearances, Jimmy Page and Zeppelin manager Peter Grant decided to go the opposite route. If you wanted to buy “Dazed and Confused” or “Stairway to Heaven,” you had to buy the whole album.
For those who wanted a taste of Zeppelin’s epic live performances, you had to buy a ticket. What started as a technique to build mystique and sell more albums became an absolute cash-cow for the band.
By the time it released Led Zeppelin IV, the band’s records were so in demand it stayed on the Billboard 200 charts for over five years (281 weeks). After Houses of the Holy, there was only one thing to do: Bring the record label in-house. Thus Swan Song was born.
Physical Graffiti, Zeppelin’s first release on its own label, became the fastest album to ever reach No. 1 (two weeks) when it shot there in 1975. That answered the question: Why sell a $0.99 single when you can sell an album for $11.98?
Considering Physical Graffiti sold more than 16 million copies over the years, that strategy speaks for itself. Zeppelin never wanted a single and never needed one. The band almost begrudgingly had a No. 1 hit but it didn’t matter.
You need cooling
Baby I'm not fooling
I'm gonna send ya
Back to schooling
Way down inside
A-honey you need it
I'm gonna give you my love
I'm gonna give you my love, yeah
Wanna whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love
You've been learning
Um baby I been learning
All them good times baby, baby
I've been year-yearning
A-way, way down inside
A-honey you need-ah
I'm gonna give you my love, ah
I'm gonna give you my love, ah oh
Whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love (I don't want more)
You've got to bleed on me, yeah
Ah ah
Ah ah ah
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah
Ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah ah
(No no no no)
Ah, love
Love love love love love
You've been cooling
And baby I've been drooling
All the good times, baby
I've been misusing
A-way, way down inside
I'm gonna give ya my love
I'm gonna give ya every inch of my love
I'm gonna give ya my love
Yeah
Alright
Let's go
Wanna whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love
Wanna whole lotta love
Way down inside
Woman, you need it
Love
My, my, my, my
My, my, my, my
Lord
Shake for me girl
I wanna be your backdoor man
Hey, oh, hey, oh, hey, oh
Ooh yeah
Oh, oh, oh, oh
Cool, my, my baby
Keep it cooling baby
A-keep it cooling baby
A-keep it cooling baby
Ah, keep it cooling baby
Ah, ah ha, oh
Writer/s: James Patrick Page, John Bonham, John Paul Jones, Robert Anthony Plant
Publisher: Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind
This week’s Song Lyric Sunday is about songs originally offered to one or more artists and got turned down only to be recorded by someone else resulting in the song becoming a big hit. Researching this subject I found plenty of songs that were recorded fairly recently and I was surprised at how many hits by Rihanna were actually intended for someone else. Same goes for Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears, even Adele. I was trying to find something from much earlier but did not, so I’m hoping a fellow blogger will surprise me here today.
My thanks to Fandango for hosting today’s SLS while Jim takes a vacation.
The song I have chosen is a Santana and Michelle Branch collaboration, the Game of Love, which Santana had originally wanted Tina Turner to record with him. However, record producer Clive Davis, rejected the idea because he wanted someone younger to appeal to a more youthful audience. Although Songfacts doesn’t mention it, there was a suggestion, from another source, that the song was offered to Rob Thomas. He evidently turned it down because he thought it would be regarded as Smooth 2, his earlier mega hit with Santana. Who knows for sure? As it turned out Clive Davis was right. The finished product with Michelle Branch’s lovely voice and Santana’s magic made it a big hit.
The Song
Gregg Alexander, who records as The New Radicals (“You Get What You Give”) wrote this song with Rick Nowels, whose co-writes include “Standing Still” for Jewel and “Heaven Is A Place On Earth” for Belinda Carlisle. Alexander recorded a demo, and the song sat around for about a year until Nowels’ manager sent the song to Clive Davis, head of Arista Records, when Santana was looking for songs. With no Latin flavor, it was an unlikely song for Carlos Santana to record, but he went for it, making it the first single from his group’s album Shaman, the follow-up to their 1999 blockbuster Supernatural. This song is about the conflicted emotions that go along with love. The way this story plays out, it was love at first sight (“One kiss and boom you’re the only one for me”) but now they’re apart. The soothing melody belies a dark lyric, as the singer seems kind of dependent:
You roll me Control me Console me Please hold me You guide me Divide me into me
She figures it’s all in the game of love, but he might have other ideas. Michelle Branch is the lead vocalist on this song. She earned an audition through the song’s writer, Gregg Alexander, who suggested her – members of his band The New Radicals also played in Branch’s touring band. “I didn’t think I got it,” Branch told Songfacts. “I was really nervous. I went on tour and thought that was the end of it, and then I got a call saying they loved my version and they had decided that I was the singer.
The next thing you know, I was going to Chicago to film the music video. The first time I met Carlos was on set for ‘The Game Of Love.'” Branch was still a teenager when she recorded her vocal, but she had the poise and confidence to suggest a change to the lyric. Instead of “a little bit of laughs,” she wanted “a little bit of lust,” and the line “I’m telling you my babe” changed to “I’m turning in my bed.” Her suggestions were politely declined.
In her Songfacts interview, she said: “I was thinking of being lovesick, unable to sleep, turning in the bed. Like lusting after someone. But they wanted it a little more lighthearted. But I love the song and I’m honored that I was chosen to sing it.”
Tina Turner was reportedly Santana’s first choice as vocalist and even recorded it with him. Details are sketchy, but it seems label boss Clive Davis rejected Turner and went with Branch for youth appeal; most of Santana’s hits around this time were with vocalists a generation younger than him, like Rob Thomas and Wyclef Jean.
The Tina Turner version was finally released in 2007 as part of the Ultimate Santana collection. When it was issued, Santana made this statement to the Associated Press:
“Queens come and go – there’s only one Tina Turner. I love Michelle, and she did a great interpretation of it. It’s just that with all honor and respect to Michelle, there’s the girl and there’s the woman, and Michelle is unfolding into a woman. But it takes time to go from a girl to a woman.”
Michelle Branch released her breakthrough album The Spirit Room in 2001 when she was 18. “The Game Of Love” gave her next one, Hotel Paper, released in 2003, a nice push – it went to #2 in the US and sold a million copies.
The video was directed by Paul Fedor, who was known for darker fare like Alice in Chains’ “Get Born Again” and Marilyn Manson’s “The Nobodies.” The “Game Of Love” video shows Santana and Branch performing the song on the streets of Chicago as a number of couples suck face.
Michelle Branch was an excellent pairing for Santana. She was a TRL favorite with a young, female fanbase, but sounded great to the ears of Santana fans, who were much older. Branch wrote her own songs and was a student of emotions, able to sing convincingly about romantic love before she had experienced it herself. She could also play acoustic guitar, providing a nice symmetry in the video while Carlos Santana played electric.
Branch did so well that when Santana released their next album, All That I Am, in 2005, she once again got the call to sing the first single, “I’m Feeling You.” She was the only guest vocalist to appear on both the Shaman and All That I Am albums.
The song’s co-writer Gregg Alexander was a bit of mystery man around this time, having moved to London where he wrote songs under assumed names. For this one, he used Alex Ander. Michelle Branch joined Santana from time to time to perform this song on the group’s 2002 tour; they first performed it together in Los Angeles on October 12. Branch was thrilled to record with Santana; her mom used to play their 1970 album Abraxas in the house.
Tell me
Just what you want me to be
One kiss
And boom you're the only one for me
So please tell me
Why don't you come around no more?
'Cause right now
I'm crying outside the door of your candy store
It just takes a little bit of this, a little bit of that
It started with a kiss
Now we're up to bat
A little bit of laughs, a little bit of pain
I'm telling you my babe
It's all in the game of
Love is
Whatever you make it to be
Sunshine
Instead of this cold lonely sea
So please baby
Try and use me for what I'm good for
It ain't saying goodbye
It's knocking down the door of your candy store
It just takes a little bit of this, a little bit of that
It started with a kiss
Now we're up to bat
A little bit of laughs, a little bit of pain
I'm telling you baby
It's all in the game of love
It's all in this game of love
You roll me
Control me
Console me
Please hold me
You guide me
Divide me
Into me
So please tell me
Why don't you come around no more?
'Cause right now
I'm dying outside the door of your loving store
It just take a little bit of this, a little bit of that
It started with a kiss
Now we're up to bat
A little bit of laughs, a little bit of pain
I'm telling you my babe
It's all in the game of love
All in this game of love
It's all in the game of love
Let's play the game of love
Roll me
Control me
Please hold me
I'm out here on my own
On my own
Writer/s: Gregg Alexander, Richard Nowels
Publisher: BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Spirit Music Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind
Amy, aka E.M., has provided us with the theme for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday, and it is One Hit Wonders. The song I chose for this prompt is ‘Come On Eileen’ by Dexys Midnight Runners. I featured it back in early 2020. Although the band had a subsequent hit song with Geno in the UK, Come on Eileen is the only hit the group had here in the USA.
Our regular host, Jim Adams, is on vacation for a couple of weeks and so Song Lyric Sunday is hosted by our friend and regular participant in SLS, Fandango, from the blog This, That and the Other.
The Song
Written by Dexys lead singer Kevin Rowland, trombone player Jim Paterson and guitarist Al Archer, this song was an enormous hit, going to #1 in America, the UK and Australia.While the song will fit nicely in an ’80s music time capsule, it sounded nothing like the other hits of the era. There are no synthesizers on the song, but there is banjo, accordion, fiddle and saxophone. In a Songfacts interview with Kevin Rowland, he explained how the song came together: “We wanted a good rhythm and we found one. Lots of records we liked had that rhythm: ‘Concrete and Clay,’ ‘It’s Not Unusual’ by Tom Jones. Lots of records we liked had that ‘Bomp ba bomp, bomp ba bomp.’ We felt it was a good rhythm. We came up with the chord sequence ourselves and just started singing melodies over it. I remember thinking, ‘We’re really onto something here.
I came up with that, ‘Too ra loo ra,’ and I remember thinking, ‘Wow, this is sounding really good.’ You get a feeling when you’re writing a song. Something happens. And in the end it kind of finished itself.”
This song is based on a true story. Eileen was a girl that Kevin Rowland grew up with. Their relationship became romantic when the pair were 13, and according to Rowland, it turned sexual a year or two later.Rowland was raised Catholic and served as an altar boy in church. Sex was a taboo subject, and considered “dirty” – something that fascinated him. When he wrote this song, Rowland was expressing the feelings of that adolescent enjoying his first sexual relationship and dreaming of being free from the strictures of a buttoned-down society:
You in that dress My thoughts I confess Verge on dirty
The song describes the thin line between love and lust.
Dexys Midnight Runners had no American distribution for their first album, which did very well in the UK and contained a #1 hit called “Geno.” “Come On Eileen” was their first single issued in US, and was the only American hit for the band – “The Celtic Soul Brothers” was served up as a follow-up single, but petered out at #86. Much of the US success for “Eileen” can be attributed to its video, which got constant airplay on MTV and remains one of the most memorable and beloved clips of the era.Most videos at the time were slick productions featuring impossibly pretty people in unexpected locations, but Dexys’ video was delightfully different, with the overall-clad band acting out the love story on a gritty street. Kevin Rowland doing an earnest jig became a defining image of the early MTV era. When we asked him about shooting it, he told us: “It was one day. We started at 6 in the morning, we finished very late at night. It just kind of worked.”
When this hit #1 in the US, it knocked Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” off the top spot.
Dexys Midnight Runners released their first album, Searching for the Young Soul Rebels, in 1980. It contained the #1 UK hit “Geno” and earned the band lots of acclaim in their home country of England. For their second album Too-Rye-Ay, the group added fiddles and switched to more of an Irish folk sound. Kevin Rowland changed out every member except for Jim Paterson and also updated their image, going from a stylish, rustic Italian look to a ragged, unkempt appearance.This hillbilly theme was a great complement to their new sound and made for a striking visual. Rowland sold the look by appearing in patched-up denim offstage and insisting that it was not an act. When Smash Hits writer Dave Rimmer broached the subject in 1982, Rowland snapped: “I take deadly serious what I do. It’s very important to me to be an individual. I don’t care if people laugh. That’s what Dexys Midnight Runners is all about: showing your feelings and not giving a damn what other people think.”
The Lyrics
Come on, Eileen
Come on, Eileen
Poor old Johnny Ray sounded sad upon the radio
He moved a million hearts in mono
Our mothers cried
And sang along who'd blame them?
You've grown, so grown
Now I must say more than ever
(Come on, Eileen) Toora Loora Toora Loo-Rye Aye
And we can sing just like our fathers
Come on, Eileen, I swear (well he means)
At this moment, you mean everything
You in that dress, my thoughts I confess
Verge on dirty
Ah come on, Eileen
These people round here, wear beaten down eyes
Sunk in smoke dried faces, so resigned to what their fate is
But not us, no not us, we are far too young and clever
(Remember) Toora Loora Toora Loo-Rye-Aye
Eileen I'll hum this tune forever
Come on, Eileen, I swear, well he means
Ah come on, let's take off everything
Pretty red dress Eileen (Tell him yes)
Ah come on, let's ah come on, Eileen
Pretty red dress Eileen (Tell him yes)
Ah come on, let's, ah come on, Eileen, please
Come on, Eileen taloo-rye-aye
Come on, Eileen taloo-rye-aye
(Now you have grown, now you have shown, oh, Eileen)
Said come on, Eileen taloo-rye-aye
You've grown
So grown (Show, how you feel)
Now I must say more than ever
Things 'round here have changed
I said too-ra-loo-ra-too-ra-loo-rye-aye
Come on, Eileen, I swear (well he means)
At this moment, you mean everything
You in that dress, my thoughts I confess
Verge on dirty
Ah come on, Eileen
Come on, Eileen, I swear (well he means)
At this moment, you mean everything
You in that dress, my thoughts I confess
Well, they're dirty
Come on, Eileen
Come on, Eileen, well he means
Song Lyric Sunday prompts for this week are Amaze, Astonish, Curious, Shock, Surprise and Wonder suggested by Melanie B Cee, aka Sparky of Sparks From A Combustible Mind.
I have picked the Natalie Merchant song, “Wonder” that I have always liked. Hope you like it too!
The Song
When she was a teenager, Natalie Merchant worked at a day camp for special needs children, many of whom had been institutionalized since infancy and abandoned by their parents. This song was inspired by that experience.
She explained on a VH1 Storytellers appearance: “When I was 13 years old, we’re talking 1976, I spent my summer working as a volunteer for a bunch of hippies, basically, that got a seed grant from the Carter administration, which had a lot of really wonderful programs for the arts. These people started a day camp for handicapped children, and I worked for them the whole summer. A lot of these children were institutionalized – their parents had left the scene a long time ago. They didn’t function so well in a conventional sense, but it seems that a lot of the children had developed like a private language or new senses so they could navigate through the world, especially the blind and the deaf children that we worked with.
From an early age, I had that contact with children who had special needs. I had lost my fear of intimacy with them – especially with Down syndrome kids, they could be really unpredictable and up to that point I had been a little frightened of them. I maintained some of the friendships with those kids and I was always open to meeting children with special needs. So when I wrote the song ‘Wonder,’ I wrote the song about a woman who was born with handicaps that seemed insurmountable, but she did overcome them, greatly because she had a loving family, especially her adoptive mother – she had been given up to an institution at birth.” This is a very meaningful song to many people who grew up with special needs and their caretakers. The song views these people as “wonders,” with doctors having no explanation for their condition, but seeing the work of God in the creation.
“I’ve met a lot of people through this song, and they’ve told me that they’ve taken it on as their song, that it describes them,” Merchant said. “It describes their strengths in spite of what others would see as deficiencies.” Natalie Merchant performed this song, along with “Carnival,” on an episode of Saturday Night Live hosted by David Schwimmer in 1995.
The Lyrics
Doctors have come from distant cities, just to see me
Stand over my bed, disbelieving what they're seeing
They say I must be one of the wonders
Of God's own creation
And as far as they see, they can offer
No explanation
Newspapers ask intimate questions, want confessions
They reach into my head to steal, the glory of my story
They say I must be one of the wonders
Of God's own creation
And as far as they see, they can offer
No explanation
Ooo, I believe, fate smiled
And destiny laughed as you came to my cradle
Know this child will be able
Laughed as my body she lifted
Know this child will be gifted
With love, with patience, and with faith
She'll make her way, she'll make her way
People see me I'm a challenge to your balance
I'm over your heads how I confound you
And astound you
To know I must be one of the wonders
God's own creation
And as far as they see, they can offer
Me no explanation
Ooo, I believe, fate smiled
And destiny laughed as she came to my cradle
Know this child will be able
Laughed as she came to my mother
Know this child will not suffer
Laughed as my body she lifted
Know this child will be gifted
With love, with patience and with faith
She'll make her way, she'll make her way
She'll make her way, she'll make her way
Writer/s: NATALIE A MERCHANT
Publisher: Downtown Music Publishing
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind
The prompts for this week’s Song Lyric Sunday, hosted by Jim Adams, are Disgust, Embarrassment, Guilt, Regret, Remorse and Shame suggested by Melanie B Cee aka Sparky of Sparks From A Combustible Mind. I thought they were difficult at first but then I remembered a song by Barry Gibb and Barbra Streisand called ’Guilty’ I hope you enjoy it.
The Song
“Guilty” is a vocal duet between Barbra Streisand and Barry Gibb. The song was written by all three Bee Gees: Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb. Released as a single from Streisand’s 1980 album of the same name. “Guilty” peaked at No. 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and No. 5 on the adult contemporary chart. In the UK, the song reached No. 34 on the UK Singles Chart. The single was certified gold by the RIAA. In addition, “Guilty” won a Grammy Award in the category Best Pop Vocal Performance, Duo or Group. The song also appeared on the 2001 Bee Gees compilation, Their Greatest Hits: The Record.
The funny thing about Guilty is that while it’s credited as a Barbra Streisand album, it’s essentially a Bee Gees album with Streisand singing on it. Barry Gibb did much of the work on the album including writing, producing, and arranging. He plays guitar and sings much of the backing vocals as well as a couple of songs with Streisand including the title track. And the album cover shows Streisand and Gibb nestled with each other in white clothing against a white backdrop. Streisand wasn’t trying to hide the connection. Despite the massive backlash against the group at the time, the public was perfectly fine with hearing the Bee Gees in a supporting role.
The idea for Guilty came from Streisand who after attending a Bee Gees concert at Los Angeles’ Dodger Stadium approached the group about having them collaborate with her on her new album. The initial plan was for the Bee Gees to write and produce half the album but Streisand liked the songs they wrote so much that she and Barry wound up working on the entire album. “Guilty” was written by Barry along with his brothers and bandmates Robin and Maurice Gibb, the only song on the album with writing credits from all three Bee Gees, with Barry producing alongside regular collaborators Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson.
“Guilty,” the album’s first track, was an obvious choice for a lead single but Streisand and her label Columbia held back on releasing it. By this point, Streisand had hit #1 twice with duets, 1978’s “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” with Neil Diamond and 1979’s “No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)” with Donna Summer, and she didn’t want the public to see her as just a duets artist. Columbia released “Woman In Love,” a ballad-heavy solo track as the lead single from Guilty weeks before the album’s release to establish the album in its own right. It turned out to be the right decision as “Woman In Love” hit #1 on the Hot 100 in October 1980 becoming Streisand’s fifth and final #1 hit. The success eventually led Columbia to release “Guilty” and it wound up being a big hit as well.
The Bee Gees influence is heavy on “Guilty.” Like a lot of Bee Gees songs, “Guilty” is a love song with vague lyrics about a couple expressing their devotion to each other. Like many Bee Gees songs, it’s filled with lyrics that don’t make a whole lot of sense using Max Martin’s method of melodic math well before he popularized it, “You battle on with the love you’re livin’ on/We are devotion.” None of the lyrics for the album were re-written which says a lot. And it also has lyrics that are trying way too hard to be poetic, “Make it a crime to be lonely or sad/Our love will climb any mountain near or far.” The influence shows up in more direct ways. The build-up to the chorus sounds a lot to me like the post-chorus of “Night Fever.” And one of the lyrics, “Eyes can see that we got a highway to the sky” is a direct lift of the lyric, “You and me girl got a highway to the sky,” from “Too Much Heaven.”
On Barry Gibb’s demo for “Guilty” released in 2006, you can easily hear what the song could have been with Barry singing in his trademark falsetto throughout. Considering the lyrics don’t exactly require a duet, if the Bee Gees hadn’t fallen so drastically it very well could have been another hit for them. Gibb and Streisand could have easily turned “Guilty” into a show-stopping vocal duet. Instead, their performances are toned down singing in a more restrained manner and not being too showy.
