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Sedaka, an Appreciation
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It’s New Year’s Eve, 1975. My best friend, Sheila Gough, and I have decided to stay up till midnight to hear Casey Kasem’s countdown.
As often happens in my childhood memories, the parents are absent. It was the 70s. It was Berkeley. Parenting is a relative term. In this case, it worked to my advantage. Sheila and I had a blast staying up late. Older siblings were likewise elsewhere, no doubt having their own fun.
As midnight approached, we did not get sleepy. We got more and more excited. Sheila and I were in agreement: “Love Will Keep Us Together” had to be number. It simply HAD to be. Structurally, it’s an odd song. It starts with the hook, right out of the gate. No time to say “don’t bore us, take us to the chorus,” this song jumps right in. And then there’s kind of a second, turn-around hook when the music halts. STOP! (‘Cause I really love you!) There’s no buildup or delay in this song. It’s all payoff, all frosting.
The act that performed it was a throwback, visually. Much more conservative-looking than my other favorites at the time. Carly Simon, with her loose flowing hair and mutable sense of pitch. Or Carol King, a high school classmate of Sedaka’s, who had curly hair and played piano, like me. (One looks for such comparisons when one is young, and my songbook of King’s “Tapestry” was dogeared and beloved.) But Tennille, with her Dorothy Hamel bowl-cut, gave off the vibe of a traditional “lounge” singer. And the Captain was dressed like, well, a captain. But God, I loved that song.
For you kids out there, loving a song back then meant buying the 45, a lightweight little mini-record, which I did at Tower Records down on Durant Ave, right above Telegraph Avenue, next to the pinball parlor. When I didn’t have the 45 for a song I wanted, I would just sit on the front porch with the transistor radio on my lap, and there were so many radio stations in those days, I could just turn the knob from station to station until I found it. Time was abundant before the Internet. “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers was a particular favorite, and remember one sunny afternoon sitting on the front port, to find it, again and again and again. It is a warm, comforting memory.
That New Year’s Eve was one of those crystalline moments in childhood when you really feel like you understand the world completely. You know for sure what’s good, and what’s bad, and you just really really really want the world to agree with you. If it doesn’t, you don’t know how you’ll go on. Happy as we were, Sheila and I were prepared to be outraged if “our” song wasn’t number one. We were ready to be devastated. There was a lot riding on that night. So much more than a song.
Midnight arrived. I was sitting on the kitchen counter. Sheila was sitting at the table with her ear close to the radio.
Casey’s melted-butter professional-announcer voice let us know it was time for number one. We held our breath. The song played.
“Love Will Keep Us Together.”
I jumped off the counter and Sheila leapt up and we danced around the kitchen as the music played.
I didn’t know at the time who wrote the song, and I didn’t care, but another song that year had acquainted me with the composer. ’75 was the year Sedaka recorded a song he’d hat a hit with when it came out in ’62, “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.” I fell in love with that song. And if I fell in love with a song, I was obsessive. There was almost a thirst, a desperation to hear it. Once, I even put cash in an envelope and sent away for my very own copy of K-Tel’s “22 Explosive Hits!” Full of teenage tragedy from the 60s, I played it incessantly, listening to songs like, “It’s My Party” and my personal favorite, “Tell Laura I love her!” This was Sedaka’s formative era, with his hits “Calendar Girl” and “Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen!” But he also became a quintessential sound of the 70’s, with his song “Laughter in the Rain,” and another favorite of mine, the catchy “Bad Blood”, with its farty clavinova keyboard sound embracing a funkier 70s style.
I never met the man, but as I get older and more of my favorite artists pass away, I realize how important some of these one-sided relationships have been to me. I was recently bereft at the death of Diane Keaton, whose constant reinvention gave me permission to be more myself. But those very early influences stick. Along with a handful of artists, Neil Sedaka helped light the fire of my passion for music. He also gave me a great example of truly good singing. There was a sweetness to his voice, a clarity, an ease. I distinguished it, even as a kid, as something special. I would later understand that Sedaka had an ease of vocal production that is simple, but not easy to achieve. And to this day, any time I hear Sedaka’s bright silky voice— which seems to have happiness baked right into the vibration— I feel happy.
And any time I hear “Love Will Keep Us Together,” I am transported to that night, that kitchen, that friend. A feeling of love that is permeating, comforting, and yet thrilling. Our song was number one! And, just for that moment, the world made perfect sense.
As often happens in my childhood memories, the parents are absent. It was the 70s. It was Berkeley. Parenting is a relative term. In this case, it worked to my advantage. Sheila and I had a blast staying up late. Older siblings were likewise elsewhere, no doubt having their own fun.
As midnight approached, we did not get sleepy. We got more and more excited. Sheila and I were in agreement: “Love Will Keep Us Together” had to be number. It simply HAD to be. Structurally, it’s an odd song. It starts with the hook, right out of the gate. No time to say “don’t bore us, take us to the chorus,” this song jumps right in. And then there’s kind of a second, turn-around hook when the music halts. STOP! (‘Cause I really love you!) There’s no buildup or delay in this song. It’s all payoff, all frosting.
The act that performed it was a throwback, visually. Much more conservative-looking than my other favorites at the time. Carly Simon, with her loose flowing hair and mutable sense of pitch. Or Carol King, a high school classmate of Sedaka’s, who had curly hair and played piano, like me. (One looks for such comparisons when one is young, and my songbook of King’s “Tapestry” was dogeared and beloved.) But Tennille, with her Dorothy Hamel bowl-cut, gave off the vibe of a traditional “lounge” singer. And the Captain was dressed like, well, a captain. But God, I loved that song.
For you kids out there, loving a song back then meant buying the 45, a lightweight little mini-record, which I did at Tower Records down on Durant Ave, right above Telegraph Avenue, next to the pinball parlor. When I didn’t have the 45 for a song I wanted, I would just sit on the front porch with the transistor radio on my lap, and there were so many radio stations in those days, I could just turn the knob from station to station until I found it. Time was abundant before the Internet. “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers was a particular favorite, and remember one sunny afternoon sitting on the front port, to find it, again and again and again. It is a warm, comforting memory.
That New Year’s Eve was one of those crystalline moments in childhood when you really feel like you understand the world completely. You know for sure what’s good, and what’s bad, and you just really really really want the world to agree with you. If it doesn’t, you don’t know how you’ll go on. Happy as we were, Sheila and I were prepared to be outraged if “our” song wasn’t number one. We were ready to be devastated. There was a lot riding on that night. So much more than a song.
Midnight arrived. I was sitting on the kitchen counter. Sheila was sitting at the table with her ear close to the radio.
Casey’s melted-butter professional-announcer voice let us know it was time for number one. We held our breath. The song played.
“Love Will Keep Us Together.”
I jumped off the counter and Sheila leapt up and we danced around the kitchen as the music played.
I didn’t know at the time who wrote the song, and I didn’t care, but another song that year had acquainted me with the composer. ’75 was the year Sedaka recorded a song he’d hat a hit with when it came out in ’62, “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do.” I fell in love with that song. And if I fell in love with a song, I was obsessive. There was almost a thirst, a desperation to hear it. Once, I even put cash in an envelope and sent away for my very own copy of K-Tel’s “22 Explosive Hits!” Full of teenage tragedy from the 60s, I played it incessantly, listening to songs like, “It’s My Party” and my personal favorite, “Tell Laura I love her!” This was Sedaka’s formative era, with his hits “Calendar Girl” and “Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen!” But he also became a quintessential sound of the 70’s, with his song “Laughter in the Rain,” and another favorite of mine, the catchy “Bad Blood”, with its farty clavinova keyboard sound embracing a funkier 70s style.
I never met the man, but as I get older and more of my favorite artists pass away, I realize how important some of these one-sided relationships have been to me. I was recently bereft at the death of Diane Keaton, whose constant reinvention gave me permission to be more myself. But those very early influences stick. Along with a handful of artists, Neil Sedaka helped light the fire of my passion for music. He also gave me a great example of truly good singing. There was a sweetness to his voice, a clarity, an ease. I distinguished it, even as a kid, as something special. I would later understand that Sedaka had an ease of vocal production that is simple, but not easy to achieve. And to this day, any time I hear Sedaka’s bright silky voice— which seems to have happiness baked right into the vibration— I feel happy.
And any time I hear “Love Will Keep Us Together,” I am transported to that night, that kitchen, that friend. A feeling of love that is permeating, comforting, and yet thrilling. Our song was number one! And, just for that moment, the world made perfect sense.
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