BARRY WHITE – "You're The First, The Last, My Everything"

I’m sure his first hit “I’m gonna love you just a little more baby” had such a long preamble that it generally got faded to the next record on radio before the actual song even started.

And has any other song put as much stress on the indefinite article “a”?

I don’t think I’ve ever been to a wedding disco, so I wouldn’t know (I guess I don’t get invited to the kind of weddings where they have discos.) What I do know is that this song, leaving the singer aside, is big and confident and immediately raises the spirits when I hear it. It doesn’t do anything original, so a 7 seems as high as it merits, but it is a fair score.

I find it strange that this is his biggest hit (well, in the UK anyway). Because it doesn’t have his trademark – those “sexy” spoken passages that sounded like nobody else but him.

But it does have the “sexy” spoken passage, only it’s right at the beginning (“We got it together, didn’t we?”) which would imply a great deal of forebearance on the part of 1974’s disco dancers grooving aimlessly until fifty seconds into the record when that morse-code style danceable groove comes in and everyone can start bopping. And actually he does start muttering into the mike in the closing moments but maybe he was sure that would be spoken over on the radio and faded into another song dans les discotheques.

Of course, that hint of reserve – irony, let’s name it – can be a dead hand on British pop, and twenty years later it would become a governing force. But here I think it means a fraction greater openness to feeling, sentiment, and the impossibile extremity of love. It’s true, certainly, that Barry White can’t really keep up with the melody but this adds to the sense that the song is trying to capture the insurmountable joyfulness of love. If some multi-octave divo like Lionel Ritchie were to sing this, I suspect we’d wonder what all the fuss were about. Listen to the way the Walrus of Love almost entirely loses his way in love/the song after 3’30”, it’s delicious and prickly and slightly funny (in that straitened ‘we’ve all been there’ half-laugh).

Translation: I’m desperately trying to overcompensate for something.

Yeah, that’s why I don’t read music reviews anymore, or books… all those pseudo-intellectual words! Ugh! In a perfect word, there wouldn’t be any thinking, just feeling, and we’d all walk the streets gurning at each other to show off our tortured hearts.

feelings = distinguishes between “this works” and “this doesn’t”
analysis = tells you WHY something works (or doesn’t)

it’s true that analysis is harder and much more prone to vapid or meaningless generalisations (“this works because it has soul” = tells you nothing that isn’t circular; the issue is what is the technique or ingredient that SUPPLIES the soul… )

(this applies to “scoring” also: if yr not, then you have to think about what yr doing or saying, or not doing or not saying, that’s going wrong)

(also: the brain comes in sooner than yr saying dave, really — otherwise we wouldn’t be able to recognise a melody sung out of tune… when little kids’ choirs sing hymns, the tune is often VERY wayward, but we can spot what it is and react accordingly —> it’s more like multiple loop feedback, and with plenty of music the deeper feeling comes after deeper brain investment…)

actual real in-the-world working musicians spend a LOT of time training, practicing, rehearsing, doing fiddly and tedious technical work, which involves a LOT of listening back, discussion, self-criticism and yes analysis: they play scales and changes, they try things out, they argue and dissect ALL THE TIME, because it’s a job and a profession, and they want to be paid and they want to be GOOD, and you get better by going back and asking “did that work? if not why not?” (to refer you over to yr comments on anther threads, one of the reason a lot of the new romantic music was a bit weak was that its makers spend too little time attending to this dimension of their music-making; they thought they could shortcut to the strong thing they liked elsewhere, and NOT do the dreary legwork — as the original post noted, spandau ballet TALKED about soul, but they never gave a thought to how to make soul happen…)

is it a waste of time for us? well, if you don’t enjoy talking about music then you don’t enjoy it — but if you do, then it’s fun!

the choices a composer or a song-writer makes — why s/he did this rather than that? — are the heart of what s/he does: not so much what inspired them to START in music (which you’re right may well be a rather nebulous and romantic delusion about dealing directly with feeling) but what inspires them to STAY in music, which is the same as anything else rewarding — a job well done

the not-so-fun-to-listen-to dissecting and analysis aspect of music-making is it’s true mostly kept off-stage, on the grounds that it would distract from the one-off excellence of the performance, and it’s true that a lot of performers — comedians are even worse here the musicians — are very supersititious about giving the mechanics away; this is because the feedback loops between brain and body, technique and inspiration, are quite easy to disrupt, and they prefer the mythology of the intuitive gift to dwelling on the extensive work-and-analysis element, which lots of the less-thinking audience are easily alienated by) (i mean, who wants to know ken dodd’s strategies for facing a glasgow as opposed to a cleethorpes crowd? the thing is: i do, because it’s interesting in itself, being very under-discussed, as well as useful… i’m a professional writer and editor, and thinking about what makes what work and what doesn’t is the heart of my art, really; thinking about similar exploration in different not-so-distant disciplines is often a revelation…

your second argument proves my point rather than yours 🙂

emotions and reason aren’t separate, they’re intimately wrapped up in each other — and sometimes they quarrel and fight for dominance!

“Sitting on your arse wondering why you like or dont like a certain song is a complete waste of time.”

B-but that’s what I spend 99% of my arse-sitting time doing!

Re. Dave and p^nk: I can see both sides of this one, but generally speaking, I’m instinctively more on p^nk’s end of the spectrum, and in total agreement with his excellent comment #18.

The thing is, Dave: for me personally – and I’d never presume to suggest that this should apply to everyone – my enjoyment of music is enhanced by analysing what makes it good/bad/indifferent, and although I can see the danger of spoiling something by dissecting it to bits, I’m somehow not wired that way when it comes to music. (Comedy is another matter, though. I actively avoid trying to work out what makes something funny.)

As a freelance music writer, my job is to think about what makes a piece of music or a live show good/bad/indifferent, and also to build up the sort of specialist factual knowledge that can support my critiques and inform my interviews. Hanging out at sites like these is all part of that process. (God, that’s really badly put. The love of, and interest in, music came way, WAY before the freelancing work. Sheesh, I’m not that careerist…)

(Also, it’s fun to have specialist/expert knowledge of a particular subject, and music happens to be my area.)

Anyhow, with all that said: there are some songs which I won’t touch, and this happens to be one of them. For me, “You’re The First…” is a sheer rush of exultant joy, one of the small handful of songs which always, always, makes me get up and dance if I hear it (more likely than not at a wedding disco), and despite a temporary wobble while it was co-opted by Ally MacBeal, an unassailable Perfect Ten.

I think that it’s not only that it’s fun to analyze music (for some of us) (analysis is a bad, loaded word, though, isn’t it? It has “anal” in it, for one thing. ‘Figuring out what it is about a song that makes it work so well’ doesn’t sound so cold and, well, analytical), but that communicating with fellow enthusiasts about the songs we love adds greatly (for some of us) to the communal nature of music. Dancing, grooving to, or just basking together in the sounds may be all some people want or need to make music a communal experience. But for us intellectual types, there’s nothing like the excitement of finding the words — making them up, or hearing/reading someone else doing it — that express the feelings music gives us. And sharing that excitement with our fellow eggheads makes us feel less alone in the echo chambers of our own skulls, so why not? And then, there are different types of “analysis” — from the historical/sociological to the highly personal to the more technical, which is probably the type that tends to threaten to “ruin” music (for some of us) (not me). Of course, to each his own — whether or not one enjoys analysing or discussing music is not going to be a matter of life and death. On the other hand, someone who takes the “con” part in a debate on the pros and cons of analyzing in itself has already thrown in the towel by the act of entering into that discourse, haven’t they?

One of the most irritating features of oldies radio in the UK, apart from the fact that they only ever seem to broadcast an unending/unendable cycle of the same 150 or so songs, is that whenever they play this one – and inevitably, since it was Barry’s only number one, lazy Guinness-reading programmers slot it in routinely – they invariably use the edit which omits the spoken prologue and epilogue, although both are for me what makes the record great…the purring smile of his “isn’t that NICE?” at the beginning, the merging of sex with true sensuality, the knowing and loving glow of achievement that they have actually MADE it (not to mention the guitar and bass riffs later to form the basis of Pulp’s “My Legendary Girlfriend”)…and the consummation at the end. Both make the untrammelled passion of his delivery of the song itself that much more marked and palpable…and how can I not identify with the lyric; yes, my view of this record is very much based on ourselves having finally “made it,” and ooh yes, it’s a lovely feeling…

About Barry in general, I find it remarkable how he and arranger Gene Page managed to maintain and develop an unlikely spirit of 1967; the forthright testimonials and whispered confessions of Isaac Hayes suggest a distant relationship to psychedelia (and of course a far less distant one to talking blues and to gospel) but listen to those swirling flutes and harpsichords on early Barry sides like “I’m Gonna Love You Just A Little Bit More Babe” or “Never, Never Gonna Give You Up” – preferably in their full-length album versions – and there are clouds of cotton candy as well as purple silk negligee; in particular, have a listen to the exceptional second side of 1974’s Stone Gon’ album which instrumentally is but a butterfly’s breath away from the Cocteau Twins.

Geir H – No, it certainly featured on the single and was never edited back in the day. I too am irritated that you never hear it now when it surfaces as a “Revive 45”. It’s rather like cutting out the “I am the magnificent..” on Double Barrel.

Sentiment was, by 1974, something that the older generation did. That’s why the listeners to this record needed the option of reserve, detachment or whatever they needed. It’s also, maybe, why White himself leavened the generous, unequivocal sentiment with something a little earthier. The arrangement matches the spirit of the record, being lush but with a bit of added edge and urgency, bits of percussion, a glissando – ‘George Melachrino meets Isaac Hayes’. And because it bears the indelible stamp of Barry White, who had a hand it its composition, arrangement and production, it doesn’t sound manufactured. It sounds ‘created’ and to my mind it’s one of the most likeable records of its era.
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Funnily enough, I once DJed at a wedding and we had an anxious discussion about whether ‘Young Hearts Run Free’ would work.

In the end we decided against it, because the bride and groom were both pop-smart enough to know that any song that begins “What’s the sense in sharing this one and only life, just to find yourself another lost and lonely wife?” would strike the wrong note.

Another fabulous Barry White hit of 1974;

http://drunkennessofthingsbeingvarious.blogspot.com/2011/03/barry-white-cant-get-enough-of-your.html

I have the original single on the 20th Century label. The full version on the album has quite a long spoken intro. On the single this was edited to “We’ve got it together, didn’t we? Nobody but you and me. We’ve got it together baby.” What you now hear on the radio and CD compilations is different edit without the spoken intro, and the vocal sounds to me like it’s a rerecording (listen for instance to the way he sings “Your love I’ll keep for evermore”, and the bridge after each chorus), and for me it’s frankly jarring, making me wonder what the hell happened to the original single. Anyway, although I haven’t found a clip of the original single, here’s the full album version. Just magine it with the spoken bit shortened to what I said above, and a shorter fade out without the spoken outro.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iep382TK-yg

Fascinating. The story behind hardtogethits.

Some other relevant discussions are here
https://popular-number1s.com/ft/2008/12/roxy-music-jealous-guy/ (see #47+)
https://popular-number1s.com/ft/2009/02/queen-and-david-bowie-under-pressure/ (see #65+)

What puzzles me is how archivists could now know definitively whether a digital copy is close to the original single version might be in instances where

a) they do not have the original single, or
b) they have a digital copy and the original version, the running times are the same and they don’t have a particularly trained ear
(that’s me in b).

Critic watch:

1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die, and 10,001 You Must Download (2010)
Bruce Pollock (USA) – The 7,500 Most Important Songs of 1944-2000 (2005)
Pause & Play (USA) – Songs Inducted into a Time Capsule, One Track at Each Week
Q (UK) – The 1001 Best Songs Ever (2003) 959
Q (UK) – The Ultimate Music Collection (2005)

There’s enough get up and go here, for me to give it a 6/10.