Talking about someone said, someone said something about, something else someone might have said about...me being (two weeks--egads!) late again....
Alas, my introduction to this week's tune is little more than having heard it on various formats through the years. I will admit that--surprise, surprise--picking up this week's artist's greatest hits at our local book sale for a dollar a few years back and listening to it numerous times driving to and from work did make me realize how wonderful of a song it is though....
Prior to my half-assed research, I had thought that the heyday of Carly Simon pretty much ended with the seventies...and boy, was I ever wrong. While she may not have had quite the commercial success of her early career, she had hits into the eighties and nineties, and her critical success remained solid throughout (this could be because her music never sold that well during my time with Camelot Music, which may be a reflection that St. Louis just wasn't a good market for her talent, as I witnessed with numerous artists both selling and not selling during my eighteen years there). Simon's history is a bit much for a single paragraph, but to hit some of the highlights of her sixty-three-year career, Simon has twenty-four singles that have reached the Billboard Hot 100, worked on numerous soundtracks, won two Grammy Awards (with fourteen nominations), won an Academy Award for best song, and has been inducted into both the Songwriting Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She's also written five children's books and two memoirs. For her career, Simon has released twenty-four albums (with one number one and two more top ten), two live albums, ten compilations, and fifty singles (with also one number one but four more top ten). Showing no signs of letting up even at age eighty-three, Simon released her latest single this past June and an album just last month--and it was all new music, to boot.
Fun Fact: Simon was the first artist to win a Grammy, Oscar, and Golden Globe for a song composed, written, and performed by a single artist, for her song "Let the River Run" from the movie Working Girl. The only other artist to do so since was Bruce Springsteen for "Streets of Philadelphia" from the movie Philadelphia.
"That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" (far too lazy to search through over six hundred posts but may be the longest non-parenthetical song ever on Friday Night Jukebox) was the first single Simon ever released as a solo artist, and was from her 1971 debut album, the rather eponymically named Carly Simon. The single peaked at #10 (with a bullet!), while the album reached #30.
It was a week (or two) of learning whilst doing my half-assed research. I'd always thought "That's the Way I've Always Heard It Should Be" was a sweet ballad about a woman wanting to settle down with her man, but Mr. Never Heard A Set Of Lyrics He Couldn't Fuck Up completely missed the gist of this one--the protagonist is actually having all kinds of doubts about settling down and marrying. And somehow, this only made the song even greater. The lyrics (written by Jacob Brackman) are nothing short of astonishing--a subtle peak into the sorrow and nonchalant lives of the not so happily married. Simon's composing is stellar--the soft melancholy of the verses builds into the roaring and ever so catchy chorus (and listen carefully for the drum burst right before the chorus which foreshadows the change in the musical tone). But Simon's vocals are the piece de resistance--capturing all the highs and lows of the protagonist's ambivalence yet eventual capitulation. A real gem from the era of confessional singer/songwriters, and a highly underrated gem as well.
Lyric Sheet: "You say that we can keep our love alive/Babe, all I know is what I see/The couples cling and claw/And drown in love's debris..."
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
