Song Lyric Sunday was created by Helen Vahdati from This Thing Called Life One Word at a Time and author Jim Adams from A Unique Title For Me is our current guest host. For complete rules or to join in the fun, click here.

The theme for Song Lyric Sunday this week is “Alone/Confined/Depressed/Isolated/Restless/Solo.”

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Boomers are old enough to remember some of the heyday of Dionne Warwick, and to have witnessed her comeback which included No Night So Long, the title track from Warwick’s second album for Arista Records in 1980.

While it doesn’t speak directly to this week’s prompt, this song keeps me connected to a lifelong friend who was considering suicide during a low point in her life when she felt abandoned. We traded mix-tapes over the years and now share playlists, and No Night So Long is always on the list. We’ve both lost our parents and are widows, but this song reminds us though it’s dark and you have traveled far, every long night gives you one bright shining star.

FUN FACT:

• No Night So Long peaked at number twenty-three on the Billboard Hot 100 and spent three weeks at number one on the adult contemporary chart. It was Warwick’s third number one on the AC chart.
•  Richard Kerr and Will Jennings also wrote Warwick’s 1979 comeback hit I’ll Never Love This Way Again which won her the 1980 Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

The video is a live appearance from The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson.

Enjoy!

See my Song Lyric Sunday selection for Nesie’s Place!

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Disclaimer: I have no copyrights to the song and/or video and/or hyperlinks to songs and/or videos and/or gifs above. No copyright infringement intended.

Song Lyric Sunday was created by Helen Vahdati from This Thing Called Life One Word at a Time and author Jim Adams from A Unique Title For Me is our current guest host. For complete rules or to join in the fun, click here.

The theme for Song Lyric Sunday this week is “Home Town or City where you were born, or where lived in, or some place that you relate to.”

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A place I relate to isn’t a home town or city.

It’s the water.

The water has always been my safe place. Regardless of whether I was in it, on it, or sitting on a bank or a beach, water not only calmed me and gave me clarity, it rejuvenated me. All my life I’ve lived near a pond, lake, or ocean that gave me peace of mind and energy during my darkest times.

Except now. Now I call Arizona home, and me and the desert… we’re not friends. I’d planned a trip to Cali this summer, but coVID19 has scrubbed those plans.

So for now, it’s just me and playlists of oceantides and seascapes; great songs like CSN’s Southern Cross, which I featured a few weeks ago, and this great hit from 1980.

Sailing was the second single from the self-titled debut album of Christopher Cross. The song was a success in the United States, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on August 30, 1980, where it stayed for one week, and it also won Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Arrangement of the Year, and helped Cross win the Best New Artist award. VH1 named Sailing the most “softsational soft rock” song of all time.

FUN FACT:

• In his Grammy acceptance speech, Cross acknowledged Sailing as his favorite song on the album and that originally it was not meant to be a single.
• Cross had another number one song the very next year with Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do) (from the 1981 film Arthur), which also won the Oscar for Best Original Song in 1981 (with co-composers Burt Bacharach, Carole Bayer Sager, and Peter Allen).

The video is a live appearance from 1999 and Cross and company deliver a performance almost as smooth as the original recording twenty years earlier.

Enjoy!

See my Song Lyric Sunday selection for Nesie’s Place!

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Disclaimer: I have no copyrights to the song and/or video and/or hyperlinks to songs and/or videos and/or gifs above. No copyright infringement intended.

Song Lyric Sunday was created by Helen Vahdati from This Thing Called Life One Word at a Time and author Jim Adams from A Unique Title For Me is our current guest host. For complete rules or to join in the fun, click here.

The theme for Song Lyric Sunday this week is “Diamond/Emerald/Jade/Pearl/Ruby/Sapphire.”

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Performed by Sonny Charles and The Checkmates, Black Pearl was a 1969 hit; #8 on the R&B chart and #13 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Written by Phil Spector, Toni Wine, and Irwin Levine, the song is described as “one of the great Phil Spector productions, a phenomenal song with his extraordinary sound.” Black Pearl was arranged by composer Perry Botkin, Jr. who would win a Grammy Award nearly a decade later for Nadia’s Theme, the theme song from daytime soap opera, The Young and the Restless.

The single ranked #66 on Billboard’s Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1969.

FUN FACT:

• From Fort Wayne, Indiana, The Checkmates began as Checkmates, Ltd. They were discovered by Nancy Wilson and included both black and white members.
• The group broke up in 1970, but reunited in 1974 for a few more years. They performed on the same billing as Frank Sinatra and Herb Alpert, and sang the National anthem for the Thrilla in Manila–the final boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier–in 1975.
• Sonny Charles joined and toured with the Steve Miller Band from 2008 until 2012.
• On June 25, 2019, The New York Times Magazine listed Checkmates, Ltd. among hundreds of artists who lost material in the 2008 Universal fire.

Enjoy!

See my Song Lyric Sunday selection for Nesie’s Place!

~~~

Disclaimer: I have no copyrights to the song and/or video and/or hyperlinks to songs and/or videos and/or gifs above. No copyright infringement intended.

Song Lyric Sunday was created by Helen Vahdati from This Thing Called Life One Word at a Time and author Jim Adams from A Unique Title For Me is our current guest host. For complete rules or to join in the fun, click here.

The theme for Song Lyric Sunday this week is “Birthday/Cake/Gift/Party/Surprise.”

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Yes, I did use this song in September of last year for the “train” prompt, but it’s also a great party song, so here we are! 😀

The Gap Band ruled the 80s dance charts with songs like Yearning for Your Love, Burn Rubber on Me (Why You Wanna Hurt Me), Early in the Morning , You Dropped a Bomb on Me, and Outstanding, but it’s their #3 R&B hit from 1983, Party Train that appears again in this week’s SLS.

FUN FACT:

• The Gap Band was named after streets (Greenwood, Archer, and Pine) in the historic Greenwood neighborhood in the brothers’ hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The group shortened its name to The Gap Band in 1973.
• Party Train is from the group’s seventh album, Gap Band V: Jammin’.
• On August 26, 2005, The Gap Band was honored as a BMI Icon at the 57th annual BMI Urban Awards. The honor is given to a creator who has been “a unique and indelible influence on generations of music makers”. Outstanding alone remains one of the most sampled songs in history and has, astonishingly, been used by over 150 artists.
• Robert Wilson died of a heart attack at his home in Palmdale, California on August 15, 2010, at the age of 53.

The song’s music video starts with the three Wilson brothers driving onto a crowded boardwalk. It then cuts to random people dancing in a boxing ring. During this segment, it periodically cuts back to other people on the boardwalk and beach dancing, including Charlie wading in the ocean water in a speedo. The video ends with an unidentified person filling in a giant yellow ballot (which says “fill in the gap” at the bottom) and selecting “Gap Party” over “Democratic Party” and “Republican Party”. Charlie is then tackled and falls into the water.

Enjoy!

See my Song Lyric Sunday selection for Nesie’s Place!

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Disclaimer: I have no copyrights to the song and/or video and/or hyperlinks to songs and/or videos and/or gifs above. No copyright infringement intended.