1
When was the last time you heard "Bette Davis Eyes"?
I can't remember when, but I remember the track, it was ubiquitous back in 1981. Forty plus years ago if you're counting, and I am.
I got this e-mail from John Ingham today:
_________
"Subject: Re: Springsteen Tickets
Here in the UK BBC TV has a quiz show called Pointless. A subject is chosen and a set of questions is displayed. The questions have previously been asked to 100 people, who answer as many of the questions as they can. The object is for the studio players to correctly answer the question with the lowest number of people getting it right.
Yesterday one of the questions was photos of five artists who were 'Grammy Winners With More Than 15 Awards' — a combination of people like Beyonce (nearly everyone knew) to Alison Krauss (0 people recognized her). Among them: Bruce Springsteen. Not only did the studio players (both young and retired) not know who he was, out of the 100 people only 23 people knew.
Outside of his fans he's history and forgotten.
Cheers,
John Ingham"
_________
Unfathomable. And if they posted Kim Carnes's photo I'd bet no one would know who she was, but there could be a case of mistaken identity.
That was the name of the album, that opened with "Bette Davis Eyes." Which I purchased as a promo. For a couple of bucks I'd take a risk, and I did like "Bette Davis Eyes."
I'd even proffer at this late date if Kim Carnes appeared on the Super Bowl more people would know her big hit song than those of Rihanna. Well, maybe not, but can I admit I don't know a single Rihanna song? I didn't have to hear them so I didn't. Back in the sixties we were prisoners of AM radio. But then FM came along and unless you were in the car, you only listened to FM. And soon every automobile came with FM. So why listen to AM? It was a badge of honor not to.
And this persisted until the days of MTV, which created a monoculture. We all knew the same stuff. And although the division line (bell?) was history, at least we were all on the same page, today we're all on a different page.
As for listening to terrestrial radio... I can't remember the last time I did. And SiriusXM has a zillion channels and... Why should I listen to what I don't want to?
As for listening to albums...
I subscribe to the Apple News. A bargain for ten bucks a month. But I read less and less. At first I was excited that they had all these magazines I didn't subscribe to, like the English version of "Esquire" and even "Mojo," but the truth is most magazines have piss-poor writing, oftentimes by the uninformed. Yes, I have skiing as a favorite in Apple News and most of the articles are worthless, freelancers delivering an overview on that which they do not know well.
But all this is to say I'm overloaded on input, and oftentimes this means I shut down and don't even partake. As for those people surfing constantly for new music... Wow, what a waste of time, there are too many tune-outs. And when you find something you like, you feel like you're the only one who's ever heard it.
Not that anybody is addressing this.
Algorithmic playlists were exciting upon their introduction, but the truth is people curate better than machines. Because art is subjective. It's about feel. It can't be quantified. So...
I know Rihanna was all over pop radio. But I don't listen to pop radio. Sure, I knew the title of the track "Umbrella," but where and why would I hear it?
2
So I was lying on the couch and a song came into my head. "Draw of the Cards."
This was the surprise on "Mistaken Identity." The one track that did not sound like anything else. With the prominent synthesizers of the day. Hypnotic, akin to an extended Loggins & Messina track, or one of the multi-minute opuses of the late sixties and early seventies, made to relax you, set your mind free, to drift, thinking...
That's what the hit parade is rarely about, and certainly not today. You've got to make it obvious, with edges in order to hook listeners. Album tracks only matter for established fans. Therefore most of the attention is on a couple of cuts, they bring in a zillion writers, remix it, trying to get it just right, squeezing the humanity right out.
And the funny thing is this synth-based track has more humanity than those old cuts. And "Draw of the Cards" resonated.
But that's not why I'm writing this.
You see albums used to be digestible. Under forty minutes. 39:57 in the case of "Mistaken Identity." I'll posit streaming didn't kill the album, but the CD, when you could suddenly fit 80 minutes of music and acts did. And it was oftentimes one seamless stream of crap. There was no opening track on the second side. As for the closing cut, most people never made it that far.
But when albums were shorter and you bought them you played them. And hidden gems were revealed.
And that's "Don't Call It Love," in the middle of the second side of "Mistaken Identity."
3
"Nobody believes that I really care for you"
Kim Carnes did not write "Don't Call It Love," although she did write the haunting title track, "Mistaken Identity." And she got and gets props for covering Frankie Miller's "When I'm Away From You," another musician lost to the sands of time. Sure, there were his health issues, but before that...he could write and sing and play, I know, I bought the albums.
But "Don't Call It Love"... I remembered it was written by Tom Snow. Who had a solo album distributed by Atlantic. And Wikipedia told me he cowrote it with "Fame"'s Dean Pitchford. And I wondered if Tom ever covered it. So I started searching on Spotify and I didn't find a version by him, but I did find one by Dolly Parton. DOLLY PARTON?!
Reached number three on the country charts back in 1985, who knew?
So I hit play.
I expected a complete reworking, but it's the same damn song, and I couldn't stop playing it.
4
Now how do I explain the magic of "Don't Call It Love." I'm talking about the Kim Carnes version, let's start there.
Sure, there are the lyrics, but the song is a hit without them.
First and foremost it's the groove. Up and down, like a merry-go-round, you start to nod your head in time.
And the cheesy keyboard that sounds so good. Not exactly like an organ, but even more ingratiating.
And then there's Carnes's voice. A female Rod Stewart. Sure, people commented on her throatiness back then, but today we're looking for colorless voices, it's all about range, not about edge. And edge is the essence of rock and roll.
And speaking of rock and roll, "Don't Call It Love" has guitars.
And then there's Jerry Peterson's sax solo. Which is icing on the cake. It does not descend the cut to schlock, this is not latter-day Chicago, BS&T, this is still a rock track.
"Nobody believes that I really care for you"
Do they really care for you? It's hard to know. You're not exactly sure. They're here, but in an instant they could be there.
"They don't think my heart is true
I don't think you agree"
Never ever listen to your friends, unless they tell you your significant other is doing drugs or stepping out on you. Only you know what's between the two of you, what turns you on.
"You know I'm a lifetime guarantee"
That's what we're all looking for. Like our parents had. Well, if you're an old enough baby boomer, before the Louds got divorced on PBS. You want to be able to rely on them, count on them, through ups and downs.
"So if they ask you what you mean to me
Don't call it love, heavens above
We got a better thing
Don't call it love, that ain't enough
Tell 'em you're my everything"
I play this game with Felice's four year old grand niece Ella. I ask her if she likes something and she says, "I don't like it, I LOVE IT!"
The exuberance of this magical chorus conveys how she feels about him. It's a ringing endorsement. She really cares for him.
"Nobody believes
We got something they ain't got
They never seen a fire this hot
They never got that far
We're burning as bright as any star"
Here you hear the magic of a songwriter, not just another person in the band laying down lyrics atop a track. What is captured here is the universality of that moment in a relationship when you can't think about anyone else, when you're elated, when you're so happy to be alive. And if you're lucky you'll have moments in the future just like this one, albeit more brief and more infrequent. And if you're searching for this hit constantly...you've probably been married multiple times and still haven't found what you're looking for, which probably doesn't exist.
Then there's the bridge:
"(Feels so good) Feels so good
(Holding tight) Holding tight
(Tight and close) Through the night
(Through the night)
They can call it what they like
They ain't got it right"
Positively revelatory in the era of today where tracks don't even have chord changes, you can listen to them, but you can't sing them. And singing them is so joyful, it makes you feel so happy.
So "Don't Call It Love" is a bit more obvious than your usual AOR fare. But it's not a sellout, it doesn't pander, and it's got the underpinnings, the building blocks of the classics.
And that's why it's a hit. This is the kind of fare the label was looking for when they said they did not hear a single.
The track overflows with exuberance, it just makes you feel good, it's the essence of the musical experience. It's a hit, but it wasn't for Kim Carnes.
5
But it was for Dolly Parton.
That loping groove is still there. But Dolly personalizes it with her own throaty vocal. And in truth, it's not in the league of the Kim Carnes version, but a hit song works for everybody. And put a name brand with the right song and the right team and it runs up the chart.
So what have we learned here?
Possibly nothing. Because first and foremost you have to want to learn, and many people don't, especially when it comes to decades-old tracks that have not survived in the public consciousness.
However, you've got the essence right here.
Like they say, it all comes down to songs. And some performers can write A+ material, like Lennon and McCartney. And then there are others who write songs only they can perform. Come on, "Midnight Rambler" or "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by anybody but the Stones? Sure, you can sing them, but they lose their essence.
And somehow we've lost the magic of songs. Maybe because songwriting is not as lucrative as it was previously. Furthermore, songwriting, as referenced above, is oftentimes done differently today. You cobble together the track from as many as twenty sources, building it up, creating a confection. But oftentimes there's not a solid base. Not only are the fundamentals nonexistent, there are no hooks.
Then again, you can write a hit today and nobody can hear it. There's no magic formula of success. It's more about hoovering up and amplifying that which raises its head.
6
Now in truth Kim Carnes was sui generis. A singer with rock roots who also lived in the middle of the road, back when music was the foremost art form and everybody was following and aware of it. We loved Fleetwood Mac and Led Zeppelin. And Cat Stevens. The only criterion being that it was good. We were open. And when something caught fire we all shared in the joy. There was a plethora of riches, in different sub-genres.
Don't call it love, that ain't enough, I can't stop playing "Don't Call It Love," I've never burned out on it. It's one of those cuts with a little something extra, that makes it rise above, that when it ends you need to hear again, that evidences humanity.
That's what we're looking for.
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