Poco was formed in Los Angeles way back when in 1968 from the shards of Buffalo Springfield by former members Richie Furay, Jim Messina, and Rusty Young. Despite the fact that the band didn't have a lot of commercial success (they only had two albums hit the top 40, and their best peaked at #14), the band continued in many different incarnations (23 to be exact) until 2013 when the only remaining original member, Rusty Young, retired. The band does still get together for one off performances, and will on occasion be joined by the many different people who have played a part in the band's history. For their career, Poco released 19 albums, 10 live albums, and while not quite the Byrds (as noted by their 48 last week) have released 31 compilations. They've also released 24 singles through the years. Furay (Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, solo work, preacher in Colorado) and Messina (Loggins and Messina, solo work) left by the mid-seventies, and Young stayed with the band through his retirement, and as noted above, still performs the odd concert.
"Crazy Love" was released in 1979 on Poco's album Legend. It was the band's biggest single, peaking at #17 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, and also their best selling album, reaching #14 on the Billboard 200. Even better, songwriter Young noted in a 2008 interview that the song "...still pays the mortgage."
Fun Fact: Young inserted the "ooh" before the words "crazy love" in the chorus, and the "ah ha" at its end as fillers for lyrics he hoped to later insert, but once the band recorded it in the studio the members liked the chorus as it was and didn't replace them with other words. Such are the best laid plans of mice and men....
Truth be told, when "Crazy Love" was first released in 1979 I didn't like it much--thought it just another sappy ballad. With age, though, I've come to realize just what a gem it is (I'm not the only one--I noticed several people in the YouTube comments below the video had the same reaction). The crazy love of the song's title is actually a love for a woman who loves the narrator no longer, and how despite his longing to stop loving her, he can't. There's a resignation to the vocals, but it's the resignation of a man who realizes he could have never loved her and how much worse that would be than having loved and lost her. The song has a nice acoustic guitar intro (always an emaycee fave), and the harmonies are to die for (another facet of music I seem to enjoy more the older I get). Poco are considered one of the forefathers of the country rock genre, and it's not hard to see why from this one as it sounds like a song the Eagles or James Taylor could easily have done. In the end, it's proof positive that every now and again even a sappy ballad can touch greatness.
Lyric Sheet: "Tonight I'm gonna break away/Just you wait and see/I'll never be imprisoned by/A faded memory..."
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump,
emaycee
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