In the early 1980’s, one would have expected Irene Cara, who passed away in November 2022, to go on to have a long and successful music (and acting) career based largely upon recording two of the biggest hits of the early 1980s. Few artists have such big exciting hit title tracks from successful movies so close together. First, starring in the movie Fame (1980), Cara hit it big not only with “Fame,” but an impressive star turn as an actress. Then, three years later, she topped the charts with “Flashdance . . . What a Feeling” from the movie Flashdance (1983). But while I loved those songs, it was a quieter performance from Fame that I always think of first when I hear her name.
In the early 1980s, I had gone off to attend college several hundred miles away from home. Like many others there, I was young and living on my own for the first time, going somewhere where I had no friends or family. Of course, all of us there were extremely fortunate to be where we were, but many of us also were experiencing a new kind of loneliness. As with any recolocation, during those early days we had not yet forged the new bonds and friendships that would eventually come.
It was in those days that the school’s movie theater offered a showing of Fame. And there, in that darkened theater, we found some kinship with the young characters on the screen striving to create something out of their lives, struggling for success while also learning to encounter failure.
In that context, Irene Cara appeared onscreen and performed the song “Out Here On My Own.” Unlike the title track where she and everyone danced, she sold this song by merely singing at a piano. Her moving performance of the opening lyrics made our audience lean into the song. And we were there with her all the way to the final note.
Sometimes I wonder where I’ve been,
Who I am,
Do I fit in.
Make believin’ is hard alone,
Out here on my own.
As I listened, I thought about my own feelings, connecting as we do with much great art to find ourselves. I felt connected to the isolation reflected in the song, thinking it was only me. But then something happened I had not seen before and have not seen since.
I have seen movie audiences clap at the end of a movie.
I have heard movie audiences cheer when the good guy finally defeats the bad guy.
But during Fame, in the middle of the film, I was surprised to hear the college audience applaud and cheer Irene Cara’s performance of this quiet song.
And that is why Cara’s “Out Here On My Own” remains so important for me. At that moment when I was feeling alone and isolated, I realized that others in that same room were feeling the same thing. And Irene Cara brought us together for those few minutes. And it also taught me a lesson that remains to this day, to remember to be kind to others because they are often going through things that you might not suspect or know.
In recent years due to the Covid pandemic, many of us around the world have encountered new layers of loneliness, making “Out Here On My Own” seem especially timely. Reportedly, Irene Cara herself faced her own isolation in these last years leading to her death too, making the song even more poignant.
“Out Here On My Own,” while not as big of a hit as the title track “Fame,” was successful on its own. The song, written by the sister-brother team of Lesley Gore and Michael Gore, not only charted but was nominated for an Academy Award. It lost to the other bigger and happier Irene Cara song from the movie about living forever, “Fame.”
But “Out Here On My Own” remains one of the great movie songs about loneliness. In Billboard, Chuck Taylor wrote about the rerelease of the soundtrack, noting that “Out Here On My Own” “remains as simplistic and memorable a statement of isolation as has ever been written”
For a song about isolation, though, I always remember it as bringing people together.
Leave your two cents in the comments.
