Eldergays tell me was “You Light Up My Life” was such a massive hit in 1977.

Because Debby Boone was just so damned sexy. Men and women alike just wanted to fuck her. Her look was completely torrid.

Because it's about God?

It was just in the right place at the right time.

She was only 20 years old at the time.

Hated, HATED, HATED that song!

It was number 1 on the charts because the Fraus of the time came out in droves bagging for it to be played over and over again. Clean, wholesome, bland music was their motivation.

My cousin had it has her wedding son back then, even as a 10 year old I knew it was cheezy

^^^wedding song, sorry cat trying to get on keyboard

They dubbed Didi.

No one knows...it is one of the mysteries of the universe.

Because so many people at the time mistook it for a song about romantic love (or at least cheap disco sex) instead of a sexless evangelical twat from a sexless evangelical family singing about her desperate dependency on a sky fairy who may may not exist.

I was five years old at the time, it was played relentlessly everywhere and if I never hear this fucking song again it will be too soon.

It got real-old real-fast.

It beat Nobody Does It Better for the Best Song Oscar.

It was fucking EVERYWHERE. For TWO MONTHS you couldn't escape it.

Weirdly, it was the soundtrack to my first boy-boy experience with the neighbor boy down the street. He was hung and just hitting puberty and LOVED to show off his dick anytime he could to anyone who would look. Well, I not only looked, but touched. I'd spend the night at his place, and we'd play with each other's dicks. It was the summer after 6th grade. We were 12.

He's a straight, married, evangelical right-winger Republican now. Go figure.

I never got the hate for this song. Just because some religious chick decided to take a preexisting love song and change the meaning to it being about God? It's a lovely song either way.

Carol Burnett did a nice version.

R10 the song was originally a love song.DB didn't write it. SHE changed it in her own mind to being about god.

I was 7 and yes it was fairly msssive. Look, it's actually a catchy song, and she sings it quite well. I don't think its popularity is a mystery.

Either way it's...sap.

Amateur!!!

Has she been to Niece, and the isle of Greece?

Has she sipped champagne on a yacht??

Did she move like Harlow in Monte Carlo???

Has she been undressed by Kings?

Has she seen some things that a woman ain't supposed to see?

Debby's milkshake brought all the boys over.

People were tired of that shake your ass disco caterwauling. This was a simple ballad that had a massive earworm. Deb had a crystal clear voice.

And just about the time we finally got this off the radio, Anne Murray came along with You Needed Me.

Another song ONJ turned down.

you all do know these threads where someone pretends to be young is a actually a REALLY old eldergay trying to start a convo of his fav topics...like this DUMB song.

Composer Joseph Brooks was a sleazeball.

The Joseph Brooks follow up, If Ever I See You Again, lacked the stealthy religious angle and flopped harder than the first movie. It starred, nominally, DL fav Shelley Hack. Not sure if she “sang” in it.

After last month’s You Light Up My Life thread (my gawd, this place), I asked a friend about it and they said they actually liked the movie. Having seen this pile of dreck upon its release, I’ve been suspect of them ever since.

[quote]Eldergays tell me was “You Light Up My Life” was such a massive hit in 1977.

Because bad taste was the hallmark of the '70s! The clothes! The home "decor"! The avocado green and the harvest gold! The sideburns! The leisure suits in retina-searing colors! The orange carpeting!

I love sideburns.

[quote]Has she been to Niece,

No, but she’s been to Nephew.

R8 - in the movie, Didi Conn's voice was dubbed by Kasey Cysyk, but Boone's single version had the scent of Jesus on it, which made it mercilessly unavoidable.

The movie itself is unbelievably dreadful.

It was the 70s, OP. No explanations are possible.

I imagine it was the 70’s version of “My Heart Will Go On”, which is semi-hated by my millennial generation.

ANY song that gets that much airplay is going to end up hated by a generation.

I was 8 & would lip synch this to death...... Everyone knew at that point..... I knew!!!!

Lily is a fan.

My friends and I would stare out a window and sing when this played, then we'd giggle

R31 X-ers too. Though I find YLUML much more beautiful and have no problem with it.

It came along at a time in the 1970s when "power ballads" were popular (think "The Way We Were," "Don't Cry Out Loud," "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," etc.).

Debby Boone literally came out of nowhere (nobody had even heard of her prior to the song's release), and everybody loves a Cinderella story, despite the fact that she turned out to be a nepo baby.

She also had a pure, smooth voice, and the song was easy to sing, so every high school choir was performing it and every teen girl and young gay boy dreaming of being on the stage was buying the record and belting it out in their bedrooms and driving their parents insane.

It was a phenomenon.

It was the dying days of AM radio, and this was hardly the worst or only song I never wanted to hear again.

R37- A phenomenon like the Farrah Fawcett poster.

R10 That story she told of the song being some kind of ode to God was such bullshit. It was written for the movie, which was a love story about a singer. The plot had nothing to do with God.

If you listen to the lyrics, it's clearly just a standard love ballad. "Finally a chance to say, 'hey, I love you.'" Who says "Hey, God, I love you?" Then there's "it can be wrong when it feels so right." Yeah, no Christian thinks of their love for Jesus as not being wrong and feeling so right.

I think Debby's team was trying to market her as some teen angel to the frau housewife crowd and concocted this stupid narrative to expand her audience beyond the teen girl crowd.

[quote]I think Debby's team was trying to market her as some teen angel to the frau housewife crowd and concocted this stupid narrative to expand her audience beyond the teen girl crowd.

You want to hear a hilarious one? She was on a talk show and said she liked chewing coffee beans (that was a minor thing in the 1970s) and that she became addicted to coffee beans. Coffee beans! 😂

They did have to style her carefully because she was Pat Boone’s daughter and he had that 1950s clean cut image. If she went any other way, it would be disaster because she was partially riding on Pat’s fanbase. But she did marry the son of Rosemary Clooney and Jose Ferrer.

Coffee beans. 😂😂😂😂

[quote]The movie it came from wasn’t a hit yet it spent 10 weeks at number one.

I'm pretty sure the movie was NEVER a hit.

R41 I remember in the 1980s she was in the TV Movie "Sins of the Past," where she played a former prostitute who tries to escape her past life, but is stalked by a murderer.

I remember the network promoted the hell out of it. "Debby Boone as a prostitute!" "Debby Boone sheds her good girl image to play a hooker!"

I detested the song, but Debby made a few albums of Great American Songbook stuff and they're decent. I can't say anything negative about her voice.

Better version

r45-Eddie Cibrian

You Ate My Lunch

In third grade, my school choir learned to sing this song while doing the American Sign Language along with it. We had a translator come and teach us all. Even then, my young gay self knew it was incredibly cheesy.

We performed it at our school concert night, and people were just blown away. Fraus in tears. It was embarrassing.

Because of our stellar performance, we were invited to enter the state elementary choir competition. We were so sure we were going to win with our medley from "Free to Be, You and Me" (Mommies are women! Women with children!) and then our bang-up finale of "You Light Up My Life" that even the deaf could appreciate. How could we lose?

Turns out, at least six of the choirs in competition were doing the exact same thing. Apparently, the was some group of kids on Donahue or something who started it, and then it just went all around the state. I can't imagine what it was like for the audience watching all these eight-year-old assholes DRAMATICALLY doing the sign language.

Hearing that song makes me cringe to this day.

Hated it. Posting mainly to express appreciation that we had yet to devolve to the state of using such language as “nepo baby.”

Joseph Brooks was the Harvey Weinstein of his day.

[quote]Debby Boone literally came out of nowhere

She did have name recognition though.

Damn, r48, for a second I thought we were in the same class. But even though we learned the sign language it never got us into any competition. Few of the Texas rube parents were moved, I guess

Thanks, OP, now you've got this song going through my head just a couple of hours after I, for some reason, looked up "Goodbye Girl" on YouTube. What a start to the day.

r48, you've unlocked a memory- my school in Chicago did that too.

It's all about the boone.

Debby sang it on the 1978 Academy Awards, with an assortment of deaf children behind her, signing the lyrics.

But, it was revealed several days later that the children were not deaf.

R50 . . .

Daddy said, "The coffers are empty. You must save the family silver. Sing, Debbie, sing!"

So, I did, and a cool million made its way into our checking account. We were saved and Jesus had nothing to do with it.

It's a song with a lot of hope in it. People are drawn to the idea. As this is DL, I suggest you Google the word hope and my post might make more sense.

R57 your useless article tells us nothing, you smug cunt.

I win.

This is the best version

It would if you had the ability to read, R60.

I do, R62, at a reading and comprehension level clearly higher than yours.

But do keep trying, you sweet Summer Child.

Best,

R60

I don't think she lies. She just [italic]really[/italic] believes.

From the beginning of time until the end times, there was, is, and will be an enormous market for schmaltz.

Nothing is worse than hearing a coked-out Whitney Houston shouting out this song in 2002...even the critics hated this song, so Arista dropped plans to release it as a single (they thought they had another 'Greatest Love of All' remake hit on their hands).

What you will about it. It was a fucking earworm.

Pity the poor soul at R63, who honestly feels she is somehow relevant.

I just think it's a pretty song, lyrically and vocally and performed excellently. And I'm not one for love ballads usually. But I can understand if you grew up with it blairing non stop on the radio. I was born a couple of years after it was released so I didn't get the worst if it.

R66 that arrangement is horrendous

You stink up my life with your big hole

the worst, most boring song, ever....

R70 Agree. It should have never made it to the album. This was the best of Houston's recordings back then to make the cut ? Geez.

Good job, R68! You did a GOOD JOB!!

Oh, my stars, you’re such a GOOD BOY, probably the bestest in your Special Class!

Tomorrow, you get to help teacher clean the erasers!

We’re so PROUD of you, R68!!!!

Almost as great as Torn Between Two Lovers and Tie a Yellow Ribbon.

Whitney's version sounds like she's singing to her crack pipe.

Hated it then, hate it now. I was starting my first year of high school when this shite song was out and wreaking havoc. In my southern California town school buses by this time had all been equipped with stereo systems to keep the kids occupied as a way to pacify the students, I guess (it worked). At the height of the frenzy, you couldn't take a 20-minute ride without the radio DJ playing You Light Up My Life. Barf. I nursed a deep hate for Debby Boone for all these years until I happened to catch the Stephanie Miller Show where her guest was, you guessed it: Debby Boone. She actually comes off as a normal person. Kind of fun to listen to the interview if you can stomach endless commercials. Speaking of which, if you give this a listen, skip the ads at the beginning and start at around 4:10. You'll want to be prepared for hitting the FF button for all the Plexaderm ad breaks. If you're inclined to want to check out the show on a podcast app, it's episode 107, dated May 1, 2020.

It's vomit inducing.

Wait until OP hears Honey by Bobby Goldsboro.

I distinctly recall this being played for my church youth group when we'd meet Sunday evenings. I assume the people in charge were overjoyed to have something "hip" and "happening" to lure us away from that devil music being offered by Olivia Newton John and the Bee Gees.

[quote]It was a fucking earworm.

No, it wasn't. It was, and it remains, the fucking [italic]opposite[/italic] of an earworm. It's as sappy as "Die Moldau," by Smetana, the only piece of classical music I have an active dislike of.

Now stop lying.

I know she didn't write it R16 . I only mentioned her singing the song, not writing it. Please work on your reading comprehension skills or your understanding of the English language.

Do you know anything about the Boone family R40 ? Especially their patriarch Pat Boone? The goofy but squeaky clean evangelical church goer brand has been the way he and his family have marketed themselves for decades. Whether it was written about God originally or not, whether the story is true or not, I don't really care. I'm just surprised I've had two idiots questioning my single comment on a forty-five year old song which some of us (and the world at large) has tried hard to forget.

Nepo baby Debbie couldn't beat out Barbra Streisand for the Grammy. Presented to her by Andy Gibb in a peach-colored suit that Barbra admires.

Can you believe that we used to have such amazing female artists nominated for Grammys back then? All of these nominees are legends today, except for one-hit wonder Debbie. Did people know that they were living through one of the greatest eras of music at the time? It seems like a million years ago.

Aside from SNF most of what OP listed was more rock music....the Top 40 charts had a very different sound.

I’m fingering my asshole

r84 Shit movie, shit song. The Grammy should have gone to Linda or Carly. Linda's my favorite singer, but I like "Nobody Does It Better" more than "Blue Bayou," which I played too often.

"California" is better. She could have had a decent middle of the road career. She was just impossibly bland.

Young Andy Gibb looked juicy as a peach in that peach suit.

Has anyone mentioned that the Boones lived next door to Ozzy Osborne, and the two patriarchs actually got along?

The night of the 1978 Academy Awards, the camera zoomed in on a beaming Pat Boone in the audience after his daughter had completed her song.

Debby Boone today.

She looks like Laura Dern.

Honestly, despite the religious angle DB infused into it, the lyrics tell another story

"You light up my days, and fill my nights with song, it can't be wrong, when it feels so right" always sounded like she was talking about fucking.

I find Debbie's comment odd:

"I had no freedom whatsoever. Joe told me exactly how to sing it and imitate every inflection from the original recording."

I don't see how else she could have interpreted it.

I thought is was about fucking and freebasing too. I worried that Debby would join the 27 Club.

It’s a toss up as to which 70s song was more vomit inducing. You Light Up My Life or Feelings.

Samantha Cole. She goes in some interesting directions though the video plot seems dumb.

You guys are slipping. And Patti really was sincere.

Ree back phrasing the hell out of it.

[quote]It came along at a time in the 1970s when "power ballads" were popular (think "The Way We Were," "Don't Cry Out Loud," "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," etc.).

Someone doesn't understand what a power ballad is. Nor that the period goes inside the parenthesis.

It was written by someone who hated the human race and wanted to make everyone in it miserable. It made the 70s a terrible time to be alive.

A lesson for R101, who doesn't understand punctuation placement.

[quote]Someone doesn't understand what a power ballad is.

Or the decade in which they were most popular (and oppressive)

[quote]Nor that the period goes inside the parenthesis.

Question, r101 (not an Oh, Dear): do you [italic]need[/italic] the period after the right parenthesis?

[quote]It’s a toss up as to which 70s song was more vomit inducing. You Light Up My Life or Feelings.

I lived through the 1970s. It's a close call, but for me, I give the award to "Tie a Yellow Ribbon". It was also played everywhere constantly, number one song for the year, there was no escape. With that inane Eastern-European style melody and beer-hall arrangement, it made you want to kill someone.

I was in elementary school and we had to sing it. We hated it and made up our own lyrics ("you darken my days," etc.).

R84 What, you don't embrace the real depth and class of today's elegantly poetic music?

For you, R97.

IIRC, didn't Marie Osmond originally pass on the song which is how Boone ended up with it ? I'm pretty sure Boone wasn't the original choice to sing this.

Pat would've lit up my life back in the day.

It can't be wrong when it feels so right.

During Wednesday morning chapel at my religious high school, the student choir would sing it to a picture of Jesus.

I think every girl who performed in my high school talent show chose this as their song.

R110 Damn. He was fine. Too bad he want all Jesus-ey. I bet he threw a mean fuck back then.

Didnt Pat also have another daughter that was famous for being bulimic and for writing a book about it, basically being the first famous person to call attention to the disease? I think she was friends with Karen Carpenter.

The best little girl in the world bitches.

I couple this song in my mind with Afternoon Delight, which was out the previous year. Both were massive hits and both were made fun of at the time. Afternoon Delight isn’t about Jesus though, unless I’m missing some subtext. I think it’s about fucking.

One Tin Soldier.

I will not!

There were a lot of crap songs that were played endlessly in the 1970s. Today’s kids don’t know how good they have it when they can choose their music.

I’m The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA

I Never Promised You A Rose Garden

By The Time I Get To Phoenix

Honey

You Needed Me

Through the Eyes of Love

The list of crappy schmaltz is endless.

Fuck all of you.

By The Time I Get To Phoenix was not schmaltz.

I recall it was a monster hit end of 1977 to start of 1978. It spent something like 2 months at number one on the Billboard singles charts. It just wouldn't die. I sort of liked it when I first heard it, but by the time it ran it's course I hated it with a passion. It's a good thing the Bee Gees dominance at that time helped to push it out of prominence.

It stayed at #1 for ten weeks in 1977-78, breaking Elvis' record of 9 weeks in the 1950s. Four years later, ONJ tied her record with 'Physical' from 1981-82.

[quote]By The Time I Get To Phoenix was not schmaltz.

I couldn’t remember what the rating for lower than schmaltz was called.

It would have been nice if ONJ did the song and it was successful. She would have had the biggest seller for two decades in a row. I don't think that would happen though. If she had done this it probably would have killed her career.

R114, Yes, Pat had another daughter who suffered from anorexia and ironically her name was Cherry.

R121, Frank Sinatra once called it the best torch song ever written.

All I remember is an ugly first grader singing it to her favorite teacher at an assembly for the teacher’s retirement.

R128 Well, at least that sounds like an appropriate time and place for such a sentiment.

My favorite version.

"By The Time I Get To Phoenix"...a great Jimmy Webb song. Fine lyrics.

The sentimentality is skillfully handled. It is not schmaltz.

Vaginas.

That same year, the movie 'New York, New York' was released (and bombed). I never understood why they didn't release Liza's recording of the theme song, since it was so catchy. A few years later, Sinatra released it as a single and had a massive hit with it.

[quote]I never understood why they didn't release Liza's recording of the theme song,

They did.

Run, Joey, Run.

So sad that Pat Boone became such a bitter old right-wing hatemonger.

Andy and Debby had the same hairdo in '77.

The 70s were all over the place. For every rock song there’d be something weird like Captain and Tennille or really weird like Hurricane Smith. And all the awful Wings stuff. I wasn’t into any of it til 1978 or so.

Whenever I think of Pat Boone I always think of him presenting some award half naked in middle age after he’d spent months bodybuilding. It seemed such a strange thing to do and I don’t think he was even promoting anything.

R139 . . .

MUSKRAT LOVE WAS NOT WEIRD!

Pat was dreamy.

Shirley Boone reportedly cheated on Pat in the 1970s with Ryan O’Neal.

When Rock Hudson was in his final days at his home, gung-ho Christian Shirley was conducting religious rites at his bedside.

Pat and Shirley Boone

R139, he was just making fun of his own clean-cut image. It wasn't really about bodybuilding, it was about the biker gear and punk-ish look.

Pat was the inspiration for the white version of “Cadillac Car” in Dreamgirls.

R146 Pat covered Tutti Fruitti.

R136 Bitter? Hatemonger?

Never heard that about him. Examples please

Pat Boone is like Maddy Cawthorn today.

Pat Boone was dreamy and rather sexy with Ann-Margret in the move State Fair, from the early 60s. I got his appeal, after seeing him in that.

R148, you weren't aware he was a right-wing republican anti-gay sexist asshole now? Seriously?

Pat Boone was the white bread approach to have hit songs from race music. It was watered down and bland, but it did introduce rhythm and blues to the white population. Elvis of course did a significantly better job of this because he could sing with soul and emotion. Basically wedding blues with country. Buddy Holly did a credible job of this as well.

For all the religiousness The Boones seemed relatively relaxed and un holier than thou than some if the other famous religious families like the Osmonds. At least they were self aware.

I liked Tammy Faye Bakker’s version

[quote]but it did introduce rhythm and blues to the white population.

You don't know what you're talking about.

There were mass audience R&B hits through the 1950s. Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley etc. Bo diddly and others appeared on Ed Sullivan before Elvis. The public was well aware of R&B before Pat Boone got around to singing it.

Pat put out a heavy metal album about 15 yrs ago

She's married to Rosemary Clooney and Jose Ferrer's son, Gabriel Ferrer.

R109, they wouldn’t have wanted Marie Osmond to sing it. The original vocalist in the film didn’t want to release it so they looked for somebody on the same record label - I think it was Warner Bros. - who was already signed and had a similar voice, etc. Hard to believe but they wanted the single to match the film that nobody saw as closely as possible. Maybe to win a Best Song Oscar.

"You Light Up My Life" was the "What Was I Made For" of its day.

My parents had a Pat Boone album when I was growing up, and it had this song on it. I used to listen to it over and over again.

Listening to it today, it's an incredibly racist song, especially the end, where Speedy says, "Hey, Rosita, come quick! Down at the cantina, they're giving green stamps with tequila."

Yikes.

R155 I am aware of that, but it was considered race music in most white households, and frowned upon if not outright forbidden. White singers such as Pat Boone and Elvis Presley made it more palatable and acceptable. Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley were the true founders of rock and roll.

We all heard the song, but nobody ever considered it a "massive hit." It was era-appropriate schmaltz, and a nonstop assault on the eardrums, but nobody (I knew) took it at all seriously. Please.

PS: We were all WAY more interested in her sister's anorexia disasterchronicle, "Starving for Attention" (by Cherry Boone O'Neill)!

R162 Like it or not (and I don't like it), "You Light Up My Life" was indeed a massive hit.

Back then I used to listen to Casey Kasem's American Top 40 every weekend. Knowing what was coming at #1, I'd always turn the station before Casey's buildup to this dreck.

There were so many great ballads from the 1970s. Top 40 radio doesn't even play ballads anymore. Artists like Streisand, Whitney, Celine and Dionne wouldn't even have careers in today's music market.

It was a massive hit 10 weeks at #1

It was matched 4-5 yrs later when Olivia Newton-John’s song “Physical” stayed in the #1 position on the Billboard Hot 100 for 10 weeks starting in late November 1981-February 1982.

R157 did she have a whole bunch of kids right after the other like Rosemary did? And then have a breakdown?

I used to write the countdown every week. For like the last ten minutes it was a constant argument with my father about staying up too late on a school night.

Debby released some successful con temporary Christian music in the 80s. I didn’t care for those album’s production wise. They sounded like much-inferior Amy Grant albums.

Cherry Boone’s description of eating the juicy leftover morsels of lamb chops from the dog bowl made me try them for the first time. They do have the best tasting fat.

Hey a man can sing it too.

Written, produced, and directed by Joe Brooks. Starring Joe Brooks. Joe Brooks. Joe Brooks. Joe Brooks. I remember that about him him. Even as a teenager I could tell he was cheese. Not surprising he was sleaze too.

[quote]We all heard the song, but nobody ever considered it a "massive hit."

You're wrong.

It was a massive hit. The biggest selling single of the 1970s. 10 weeks at number 1.

[quote]but nobody (I knew) took it at all seriously.

It's not about your circle of acquaintances.

I have this weird custom of cleaning my apartment while listening to old 70s and 80s AT40 shows. They take me back to my childhood because Saturday was chores day and we would always clean the house while listening to the countdown. It's strangely soothing, helped by the fact that so many songs were very mellow, easy listening stuff.

[quote]I am aware of that, but it was considered race music in most white households, and frowned upon if not outright forbidden.

1956 The Platters had the biggest selling single of the year after Elvis. They had two singles in the top 20 for the year. Beating Pat Boone. 1

1957 the Del Vikings, Sam Cooke in the top 20 for the year.

1958 Tommy Edwards at number 9 for the year. The Sillouttes in the top 20. The Platters again.

1959 Lloyd Price at number 3 and at number 13. The same year Willbert Harrison with "Kansas City" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold record. The Platters at number 16. The Coasters at number 17.

Gee...who was buying all those records?

[quote] Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley were the true founders of rock and roll.

No, that was Bill Haley in 1954.

Quit trying to rewrite history.

The song itself is cringeworthy. But I do like her voice.

Back in the 1970s, Pat, Shirley and the daughters would appear together as a singing act.

Tie a yellow ribbon was worse because it had a second life after the hostage crisis.

Wednesday at three I called the phone company...

This has to be one of the cheesiest songs ever.

It's cheesy and absolutely fabulous.

Vikki Carr hat the wierdest lookig tittsl

R181 Well, if anything that clip proves that Viki Carr sure knew how to sing. Singing live with minimal accompaniment, very good job.

I've Viki sings in the woods and nobody hears her is she really singing?

Dreams by Fleetwood Mac was a massive hit in 1977 which was an excellent antidote to You Light Up My Life.

According to R&B / Pop singer Roberta Flack, Brooks originally wanted her to record 'YLUML' but she passed - she thought the song sounded too much like every other ballad out there. Said Flack, after the song became a pop sensation, "Some people whose opinions I respect very much suggested I should do it...but the song reminded me of too many other things that I had heard or sung and I just didn't like it, although I think for Debby Boone 'You Light Up My Life' was perfect".

Boone then recorded the theme song 'If Ever I See You Again' for the follow-up movie of the same name (starring Brooks and Shelley Hack in 1978), but Brooks passed on releasing the recording as a single (she released her recording on her second album 'Midstream'). Brooks offered the song to Barry Manilow, but then reneged on the offer after hearing the other compositions Manilow was recording for his 1978 album ('Even Now' which became a multi-platinum seller).

Once again, he went back to Flack to record it for her upcoming album and to release it as a single. Flack said she 'hated the song' but her label insisted she record it for the album she owed them that year (along with 2 other songs from the film) when Brooks told the label this song would be as big a hit as Boone's YLUML. Her version was released on April 21, 1978 and peaked at #24 on the Billboard Hot 100 in July, 1978. The song survived on its own, as the movie (released in May, 1978) was a box office bomb. The title of Roberta Flack's 1978 album was intended to be "If Ever I See You Again", but because of the 'under-performance' of the single, and the movie flopping, Atlantic decided to re-title the album 'Roberta Flack'.

In the movie, and on the soundtrack from the film, male vocalist Jamie Carr does all the recordings of Brook's songs.

If Ever I See You Again trailer

'77 had so much better to offer.

I bought my first 45, Sir Duke, at Tower Records when it was released in March of that year.

Wow R189 8 of the top 10 songs were number one hits.

R162 It's not about what you or other people considered it. It was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 10 consecutive weeks in '77 and was on other charts even longer. It was a massive hit.

[quote]Whitney's version sounds like she's singing to her crack pipe.

She probably was.

Yes. In certain ways, it was a very embarrassing and regrettable time.

[quote]Afternoon Delight isn’t about Jesus though, unless I’m missing some subtext. I think it’s about fucking.

Yes, it's about fucking in the afternoon.

r181 Many a gay man can empathize with those lyrics.

She performed it live on TV on about 18 different programs within roughly 6 months, and they’d always pan the camera to her adoring parents sitting at a table stage-side adoring her vocal trickle that bordered on overdose by Aspartame.

I remember it on Solid Gold. I think it was great how she sang it simply and with conviction; it wasn't corny, it transcended that.

I'm ashamed now but I'll admit it. I WORE THAT ALBUM OUT WHEN I WAS IN FIFTH GRADE!

My favorite was Micol's Theme.

Vikki Carr now sells pralines to tourists on the Riverwalk in San Antonio. She strolls down the Riverwalk while singing her old songs. She'll take a photo with you if you buy some of her pralines, which are mighty tasty.

Micol was no Nadia.

When Pat Boone covered "Ain't That a Shame," he wanted to change the "ain't" to "isn't" but it wouldn't fit the tune.

They hauled Debby out to sing it to Elizabeth Taylor at a tribute TV show.

I think some of YLUMY's popularity was due to the tension between the hopeful lyrics and the sad minor key.

or maybe she lip synced.

Debby did the number at the Oscars with a group of girls signing to the song. Of course, they weren't deaf and caused some additional laughs because they messed up so badly and the song became more of a joke than it was. Naturally, it won for Best song.

R205, Please see R56.

I think Taylor was hoping it would be Michael Jackson singing “Ben.”

Debby was, by far, the prettiest of the Boone sisters.

There was a surfer girl in at my Jr High school who was supposed to sing this song for a school talent show. She ended up singing "Cold as Ice" by Foreigner.

There was a short period in the late 70s when Pat, Debbie and all her sisters were ubiquitous on TV and print hawking some miracle acne treatment called "Acne-Statin".

The product was completely bogus and the FTC ended up ordering the Boones to pay compensation to the victims of the fraud.

I wish I could find one of the Acne-Statin commercial that the Boones were in but it's incredible how gullible people were back then.

Does this seem like a product you would try?

Debby wanted to be the next Olivia.

R212 - With or without the lesbian tendencies?

Oh please, Didi Conn's movie version made it the hit it was. Not Boone's.

Didi Conn didn’t sing it in the movie.

Joseph Brooks killed himself rather than face all of those rape charges.

The commercials for that movie were on incessantly, almost as if the studio was willing it to be a hit. Didi is actually quite good and really likable in it and it's not that bad a movie.

Here’s all the songs that went to number one in 1977. Because of how billboard structured their calendar years and timeframes “you light up my life” was held over for 1978 for the year end biggest songs and finished at #3 behind Andy Gibb and The Bee Gees but over all it’s the biggest song of the 70s.

Bitch stole our look.

Roger Thorpe thought this would make him a star.