Chimesfreedom has previously noted that Darlene Love‘s “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” is among our favorite Christmas songs and favorite pop songs of all time. So, with David Letterman retiring, we will miss Love’s annual appearance on CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman to sing the song written by Phil Spector, Ellie Greenwich, and Jeff Barry.
Unfortunately, Love has stated that out of respect for Letterman, she will not take the annual tradition to another talk show. Fortunately for us, Friday night we got one more massive performance of the song, which started out as a tradition on Letterman’s NBC Late Night show back in 1986 when she was only accompanied by Paul Shaffer and a four-piece rock band. Check out the final Late Show performance of the song that originally appeared on the 1963 album A Christmas Gift for You from Phil Spector.
Why did Love stay on top of the piano after the song? Love explained to the New York Times that she knew she would start crying if Letterman hugged her, so she remained on top of the piano knowing “Dave ain’t coming up here.” Even so, you see her holding back the tears after Letterman shakes her hand. Thanks to both Love and Letterman for a wonderful tradition.
You can dance every dance with the guy Who gives you the eye, let him hold you tight; . . . But don’t forget who’s taking you home, And in whose arms you’re gonna be; So darlin’, save the last dance for me. — Doc Pomus & Mort Shuman, “Save the Last Dance for Me”
CBS Sunday Morning recently featured a story about divorce attorney Raoul Felder, which surprisingly revealed a touching story about the co-writer of the song, “Save the Last Dance for Me.” The song became a number one recording by The Drifters with Ben E. King on October 17, 1960. Later, it would be covered by others, including Michael Bublé and Dolly Parton.
Doc Pomus
Raoul Felder’s brother was Jerome Solon Felder, who became better known as a songwriter under the name Doc Pomus. Pomus, who was born in 1925, developed polio when he was 7 years old so had to walk on crutches and later rely on a wheelchair. Starting in the 1950s, Pomus wrote several hit songs with pianist Mort Shuman.
Pomus’s Wedding
Pomus wrote the lyrics to “Save the Last Dance for Me” as he looked back on the day he married Broadway actress and dancer Willi Burke in 1957. The song recounts a memory from their wedding reception at the Waldorf Astoria.
The wheelchair-bound Pomus wrote the from the bittersweet perspective of a man who cannot dance with his new bride, so he can only look on as she dances with other men. But he reminds her that they are going home together at the end of the night.
Someone today may try to say the song sounds a little sexist. But the story behind the song gives it a deeper context. Also, some different sources disagree slightly on whether Pomus wrote “Save the Last Dance” on the wedding day, looking back on that day, or after another dance. But the most reliable ones connect it to the wedding reception. And all agree that the song was influenced by a real event as Pomus watched other men dance with the woman he loved.
Ben E. King’s Emotional Recording
A related story may explain the great vocal by Ben E. King on the song. As The Drifters prepared to record “Save the Last Dance for Me,” Atlantic owner Ahmet Ertegun told King how Pomus came to write the song.
After hearing the story, King fought back tears as he prepared to lay down his vocals on the song. And then he gave one of his most moving performances that captures the joy and sadness in the lyrics. (Hear an interview with King about the song on WNYC.)
Below is the wonderful recording of “Save the Last Dance for Me” by Ben E. King and The Drifters.
Life After “Save the Last Dance for Me”
Pomus and Shuman wrote several other classics, although it is hard to imagine one as personal as “Save the Last Dance for Me.” The team’s hits include “A Teenager in Love,” “This Magic Moment,” “Turn Me Loose,” “Little Sister,” “Surrender,” “Viva, Las Vegas,” and “(Marie’s the Name) His Latest Flame.”
Pomus also wrote songs with Phil Spector, Dr. John, Willy DeVille, and others. Others, like Bob Dylan and Pomus’s friend Lou Reed, wanted to write with Pomus.
I could not find any details, but it appears it was not true that the singer in the song “Never, never” let the dancer go. Unfortunately, Pomus’s marriage to Burke did not last. Although it is too bad for them, the rest of us got a great song from the relationship.
On Sunday, May 22, 2011, Joseph Brooks — the writer of the song “You Light Up My Life” — was found dead in his Manhattan apartment, apparently having killed himself while waiting trial for the sexual assault of more than twelve women. Prosecutors claimed that he brought women to his apartment through an online ad saying he was giving auditions for a movie role, and then he allegedly drugged and raped them.
According to some reports, he would sometimes show the Academy Award he won for “You Light Up My Life” to help gain the trust of the young women. In killing himself, the 73-year-old Brooks wrapped a plastic bag around his head and attached it to a helium tank. On top of those allegations, his son was arrested five months earlier for strangling his girlfriend to death.
A jury had yet to hear the case against Brooks, so we do not know the extent of his guilt or innocence of the charges. His 3-page rambling suicide note left no clues about the alleged crimes and alluded to his health problems, as he had suffered a stroke in 2008 followed by declining health.
For those of us who grow up hearing Debby Boone’s version of the song “You Light Up My Life,” it was a sad coda to the story behind the mega-popular song, which originally was sung by Kasey Cisyk for a movie of the same name. Actress Didi Conn lip-synced the song in the movie, which was written and directed by Brooks. The song won the 1977 Grammy for Song of the Year and an Academy Award, and Boone’s version set records as the biggest hit of the 1970s. But it was so overplayed, I doubt that many people listen to the song nowadays except at weddings.
“You Light Up My Life” is still a very good song, but we are just sick of it, on top of the covers by LeAnn Rimes, Whitney Houston, and others. Still, I cannot help wondering how the news about Brooks will affect how people hear the song.
In music, can you hear the artist’s life in the song? In addition to Brooks, consider producer and convicted murderer Phil Spector, and how his conviction might affect how we view the great songs he produced throughout his career. Maybe because Spector was a producer and not the performer, his troubles do not hinder my enjoyment of his songs, such as one of my favorite songs of all time, “Be My Baby” by the Ronettes. But I do sometimes think about the man when I hear the songs, wondering if the madness occasionally peeks through the swirling layered sounds.
Brooks’s ending may tarnish “You Light Up My Life” more than Spector’s life may tarnish his songs. Spector’s work was so broad with different artists, while Brooks’s work will always be summed up with “You Light Up My Life” as his one gigantic hit song. Thus, while each Spector-produced song may carry a little part of his madness, “You Light Up My Life” bears the entire weight of Brooks’s demise. But it is also true that the relationship between the artist’s crimes and her or his music may diminish over time, such as in the case of other artists like Lead Belly or Chuck Berry.
To a large extent, most of us probably enjoy music because we like how it sounds, not because of the life of the musicians. I enjoy music by jerks too, but when the artist is a decent person, it can add something. It may be something unconscious in the back of one’s mind, but I like to think that upon listening to the whole body of work of some artists, their decency may come through into their songs.
For example, I feel fortunate that two of my favorite artists have been Bruce Springsteen and Steve Earle, not only because of their great music but because they have struggled to live good lives. Like all humans, they are not perfect, but I was lucky that after I was drawn to their music I later discovered their work for good causes and attempts to be decent men. You may find it in other artists you like, such as John Lennon, Emmylou Harris, Elton John, or U2, which has been involved with causes such as Amnesty International.
Can I find the troubled mind of Joseph Brooks in “You Light Up My Life” now? I may be imagining what I hear in 2011 in the song that won the Academy Award and the Grammy so long ago in 1977. But now the sadness of the song stands out a little bit more. I hear it in Debby Boone’s recording, and I hear it in this 1979 version below by punk rocker Patti Smith on “Kids Are People Too.” In Smith’s performance, she is accompanied on piano by a young Joseph Brooks, decades before he knew how his life would end.
At around 3:10, Smith, who also performed the song in concert, begins explaining why she chose “You Light Up My Life.” With the brilliant Patti Smith, though, one may speculate there is more to the reason she often sang the song. Brooks appears at around 3:45.
Do you think the lives of the artists affect how you see and hear their work? Do hidden stories, like the story behind “Heartbreak Hotel” affect the music? Leave a comment.
Last week’s American Idol shocked viewers when Pia Toscano went home in ninth place. There are various theories about why the audience did not vote for the excellent singer, who reportedly will come out okay with a new record contract anyway. Perhaps voters felt confident that Toscano would advance and so did not vote for her. Some have argued that this season’s judges — without Simon Cowell — are praising everyone to the same degree, so the judges do not help viewers distinguish the wheat from the chaff. There is another possibility: Maybe Toscano lost because of her divisive song, “River Deep, Mountain High.”
“River Deep, Mountain High,” originally by Ike and Tina Turner with a Phil Spector production, is both loved and hated. Some see it as one of Phil Spector’s last great songs, while others see it as overblown crap. Rolling Stone magazine recently listed it as number 33 on the “500 Greatest Songs of All-Time,” as ranked by people in the music industry and updated last year. But in The Heart of Rock & Soul (1989), critic Dave Marsh did not even list the song among the top 1001 singles every made. He explained that the song is not on his list “because it sounds to me like a muddle, an album’s worth of sounds jammed onto one side of a 45, with a little girl lyric that completely contradicts Tina Turner’s true persona as the Queen of R&B Sleaze.” (p. 545.)
When “River Deep, Mountain High” was released in 1966, critics gave it mixed reviews. The song went to number 5 in the U.K., but on the other side of the pond, it flopped and only went to number 88 in the United States. As one critic later reasoned, “The general consensus in America was that the record was too black for white radio stations to play, and too white for the black stations to play.”
Even the recording of the song was divisive. Tina Turner noted that working on the song was like “carving furniture.” One of the songwriters threw the finished acetate across the room in disgust. In her autobiography, singer Darlene Love described the sessions as “a miserable experience,” adding that only Phil Spector was happy with the results. The now-incarcerated Phil Spector later explained that “River Deep, Mountain High” “was like my farewell. I was just saying goodbye, and just wanted to go crazy, you know, for a few minutes—four minutes on wax, that’s all it was. I loved it, and enjoyed making it, but I didn’t think there was anything for the public.” After the disappointing public reaction to the song, Spector went into early retirement and into his decline with personal demons.
So maybe when Pia Toscano sang the song on American Idol, the haunted song was too much for the public. Or maybe some viewers did not like her singing a song unfortunately associated with men like Phil Spector and Ike Turner. I do not know if the song choice had anything to do with the American Idol elimination. I just know I am in the camp that loves the music. Every time I hear it, it gets stronger in every way.
Bonus “River Deep, Mountain High” Versions: Although Ike Turner is listed with his wife on the original recording, Darlene Love later recounted that he had nothing to do with the sessions for the song. Tina Turner later recorded another version of “River Deep, Mountain High.” In addition to the American Idol Pia Toscano version, there is a recent Glee television show version. Both do a good job, and it is great to see the song still appearing in mainstream performances, but neither rivals the original Tina Turner version. As far as I can tell, the song only appeared on American Idol once before. Amanda Avila sang it when she was in the top 16 during Season 4 (2005). The judges did not love her performance. And, like Pia Toscano, she was eliminated after her performance of the cursed song.
[May 2012 Update: During the 2012 season, Hollie Cavanaugh sang “River Deep, Mountain High” when she was among the five finalists. Perhaps she broke the curse, as Skylar Laine, not Hollie, was sent home after that show. Hollie was in next-to-last place.]
What do you think of “River Deep, Mountain High”? Was Pia Toscano’s elimination the most surprising ever on American Idol? Leave a comment.
