11 October 2021 - Carpenters - Top Of The World

This song, co-written by Richard Carpenter, went to #1 for 2 weeks in 1973.  And, it wasn't even supposed to be a single -  it was an album cut that ended up being a COUNTRY hit for Lynn Anderson when she covered it herself.   

Lyrically, it's little more than a really simple love song - but isn't that what love is all about?  Musically, although there's a full orchestra as part of the backing band, the song is dominated by the Wurlizer electric piano.  Karen Carpenter's earnest, wholesome delivery really sells the song.  

8 October 2021 - Love Positions - Into Your Arms

Just to say it, The Lemonheads version of this song is the definitive version.  

However, Robyn St. Clare of Australian jangle-pop band The Hummingbirds wrote the song.  She and fellow Hummingbird and future Lemonhead (he brought the song with him) Nic Dalton recorded this song as part of their side project, Love Positions.  The song is incredible simple.  It's a love song that succintly expresses the feeling of warmth and security one finds in true love.

The original arrangement of the song is sparse - St. Clare on vocal, Dalton on guitar.  There's a lot of beauty in the light arrangement.

7 October 2021 - Berlin - Take My Breath Away

When this song came out, Berlin hadn't been heard from much in a couple of years - and had never had a top 20 hit, although a few of their songs (most recently "No More Words") had been minor US hits. 

This song was different.  The love theme from the movie Top Gun, it won the Academy Award for songwriter Giorgio Moroder - who was asked by Jerry Bruckheimer to write the song for the film.

Berlin was not the first choice for the song - The Motels, actually - but when they passed, Moroder thought of Berlin - he had produced "No More Words".  and, frankly, he made the right choice. Teri Nunn was more than capable of what is considered to be one of the greatest key changes in music history (time code: 2:48), something Martha Davis of The Motels could not do. 

The song itself is one that is well known to this day.

6 October 2021 - Lights - Timing Is Everything

I wasn't planning on a Lights post for a while.  I mean, #1000

Then she posted this on Instagram:

  

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A post shared by Lights (@lights)

HOW can I ignore this?  Even if I'm a couple of days late.  

You see, Lights's sophmore album, Siberia, was released on October 4th, 2011.  It's ten years old. And I had a complete blind spot to it - largely because I didn't really (at the time) love her first album.  My former co-author Scott quite famously called me out on this.  In fact, I didn't discover this record until THIS YEAR. 

Before I wrote this post, I did something I don't do very often anymore to any album.  I listened to Siberia end to end.   It has quickly become one of my favorite albums, ever, and this listening didn't do anything to change that.  It is both dark and, well, light at the same time.  The music is stark and brooding at points, but Lights's vocal and lyrics bring the tone way up.

This is a song I often forget is on Siberia and was reminded of on my listening. The title gives the subject away - often in life, things happen - LOVE happens - when the timing is right and two people with different trajectories come together in the same point in time.  It is a beautiful and meaningful work of art.

5 October 2021 - Barry Manilow - Can't Smile Without You

Let's not bury the sotry here.

This is a cover.   

It should be on Totally Covered.

It's here.  Here is where it's going to stay.   

The Barry Manilow version of this song was not the first - David Martin did that.  But Manilow made this song his own, and this is how he did it. First, he sang the hell out of it.  He just did.  No argument.  But what he added - the sweet whistle at the beginning, a few lyrical changes - really made the song into the classic song that it is.  

Credit, however, needs to go to the original songwriters - Christian Arnold, Geoff Morrow, and David Martin - who really captured in their lyrics what being in love really is.  It is one of the most pure and beautiful representations of this in music.

4 October 2021 - Cher Lloyd - Sirens

It's been a long time since we visited Cher Lloyd, performer of the most perfect pop song.   Fight me.  

But she actually did that twice, because with her second album, Sorry I'm Late, the 3rd place finisher on X Factor really found a new maturity and strength in her already strong voice.  It was a little weird to hear the words "Cher Lloyd" and "critical acclaim" in the same sentence, and yet, with this song.....

So, maybe I have to say she's got two perfect and very different pop songs.  

So, I was curious.  I mean, this is a great and emotional tour de force of a song - that, by the way, she co-wrote.  But, what happens if you strip all the production out - if you have Cher and a microphone and a sparser accompanyment?

You hear her emotion more.  You hear everything she threw into this song so much more.

1 October 2021 - Lucinda Williams - Changed the Locks

In 2017, I wrote a post about one of the songs that made me start the Totally Covered blog.  I wrote it from the cover perspective.   Today, I wanted to give you the other side.   

In 1988, Austin TX singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams released a self-titled album.  There were a lot of great songs you know (The Grammy-winning "Passionate Kisses", famously covered by Mary Chapin Carpenter, comes to mind). However, few songs reach the influence of this song, released as a single in 1989.  

The story of the song, with harmonica, guitar and a sharp drum backing, is simple - a woman is taking increasingly absurd measures to prevent herself from falling in love with someone.  The brilliance of this song is that the object of her affection is not assigned any fault, anywhere - it's just an internal fight she's having with herself.  It is the truest musical representation of fighting one's personal feelings I've ever heard.

I called the song "achy" and "desperate" when I wrote about it on the covers blog.  Both are accurate terms, but it's a lot more than that.