Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. CDXXVII--Babyface: When Can I See You

Every now and again a song just blows you away the first time you hear it, and this week's tune would be a perfect example for me.  Late one sleepless night as I was flipping channels I heard it on MTV (VH-1?), and I stopped everything I was doing, turned up volume on the TV and marveled at what a wonder I was hearing.  I was still managing for Camelot Music at the time, and the first thing I did the next morning when I got to work was pop open a copy of the CD single and listened to it several times before we opened the doors.  Hell, I even bought the sheet music for guitar, though I never came close to being able to play it....

Kenneth Edmonds, known professionally as Babyface, was born in 1959 (just two months before me) in Indianapolis.  He began writing songs as a teenager, and by the time he was eighteen he was playing guitar in his first band, Manchild.  Shortly thereafter he joined the band Deele where he would meet Antonio "L.A." Reid, which would prove to be a fortuitous moment in his career.  Edmonds and Reid would go on to become one of the great writing/producing teams in music history.  Edmonds has written or produced twenty-six number one hits, and has won twelve Grammy Awards.  He released his first solo effort in 1986, and his latest album came out in 2022.  For his solo career, Edmonds has released nine studio albums, plus two albums with Manchild and three with Deele.  The list of his production/songwriting credits would be too numerous to list but suffice it to say it is quite impressive.

Fun Fact:  Funk great Bootsy Collins coined Edmonds nickname because--surprise, surprise--Edmonds looked so young when they first met.  Truth be told, Edmonds still looks pretty young....

"When Can I See You" was the fifth single released from his rather coolly named 1993 album For the Cool in You.  The single hit #4 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100 and is the highest charting single of his solo career.  The album reached #16 on the Billboard 200.

I've written a time or two here about simplicity in creating music, and "When Can I See You" hits all the right notes for it.  Basically, the song is just Edmonds vocals, his acoustic guitar (he uses its body to add to the rhythm section by tapping it with the heel of his hand), drums (listen carefully and you'll notice they sound like a heartbeat), and what I believe is a Friday Night Jukebox first:  finger snaps.  Edmonds silky smooth voice caresses the lyrics as he wistfully sings of a man who's not ready for the relationship to be over...but it is.  As I usually do in the lead up to writing my weekly posts, I listened to it numerous times and still, almost thirty years down the road, I listened in wonder to the heavenly sounds that a mere mortal had wrought.  It's just one fine damn tune.

Lyric Sheet:  "When does my someday begin?/When I'll find someone again?/And what if I am not truly over/What am I supposed to do then, baby, baby?..."

Enjoy:

Republicans = Nazis

Peace,

emaycee