Liza Minnelli's "Losing My Mind"

Is this a satirical thread?

"Losing My Mind" had the same global, game-changing impact as "Smells Like Teen Spirit,"

I always thought Liza was a prettier Barbara Streizand, with talent.

Pet Shop Boys remix

Liza was a sweet loon. This is soooooooo gay.

THE HELL IT DID, DORKWAD

You want a game changer?

That's the worst version of the song I've ever heard.

I remember the hour and minute I first heard this song. My course of my life was severely and irrevocably altered from that moment forward. To this day, I cannot say for better or for worse, but oh, the man I might have been.

Don't drop bombs baby.....just stay calm....baby

0/10

Liza is better in person and I always invite her to my parties.

She never comes but she doesn't know me and we live in different cities. But still I like to extend the invitation ...

Her recording of "Losing My Mind" is only ranked 14th on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

It's great but not THAT great.

I'll ask her to sing at my next party ..

Does anyone still read Rolling Stone?

[quote]considered to be one of the greatest songs of all time

LOL

Sondheim himself has said that Liza's recording of "Losing My Mind" is the definitive version. Period.

And its not ranked number 14 - checked the list and its not in the top 50, if it's on at all - you must have alternative facts.....

I do remember where I was when I heard it the first time though. A friend had the just released “Results” cassette and played it for us in his Mustang in the parking lot of a Safeway in Silver Spring, Maryland. I felt as if I was finally fully gay after hearing it.

All kidding aside when the first few seconds of the song started playing in the 80s everyone would rush to the dance floor. It was a communal experience.

True, but i think the all time rush to the dance floor leader was Gloria by Laura Brannigan -- for the early 80s ......

Oh - it just seems dated and so overwrought. It works in the stage production in the context of the show but its very very dull as a stand-alone song. I don't care what list it's on it's really a boring way to spend 3 minutes. Sondheim can really be a snore.

Pavarotti sang it at Carnegie Hall in 1992.

I was molested.

R24 Liza opened the Summer Olympics in Barcelona with it.

Liza sang it as a special guest of Simon and Garfunkel when they did their free concert in Central Park. Everyone said it was the best part of the entire night.

Liza Minnelli's "Losing My Mind" is also the official song of the Mental Health Association of America.

That's the song my mom always sang to lull me to sleep.

The song is so associated with her mother... but I'm glad Liza decided to record it.

She was in her Bentley sitting in the back seat on Houston when I unmistakably saw her mouthing the words quietly to herself. This was last summer. I was waiting for a bus.

This is how it's supposed to be sung.

I love this song and 'Results' , the album it came from. Other highlights include 'I Want You Now' , the exquisite ballad 'So Sorry, I Said' , "Don't Drop Bombs' and 'Tonight is Forever'. If they ever get around to releasing the videos in NTSC format my life will be perfect.

Most people can tell you exactly where they were when they first hear Liza's "Losing My Mind."

They think of their lives as two very different parts: Before Losing My Mind and After Losing My Mind.

It was like the Kennedy Assassination for a newer generation.

OP is losing his mind.

This is a perfect example of how people do not pick up on sarcasm online

Am I the only one who didn't know this was a cover song?

R37 yes

I don't remember ever hearing that song before today.

I've heard that the Pet Shop Boys wanted to record that album with Dusty Springfield, but for whatever reasons she couldn't do it or didn't want to do it so they offered it to Liza instead.

The Pet Shop Boys have also said that they loved how badly Liza sings pop, all over-the-top and bombastic, because that was what they were going for. They wanted it campy.

I preferred putting a jazzy spin on Send in the Clowns!

A good voice applied to a bad idea.

I remember being shocked when I read somewhere that the album didn't sell well because everyone I knew had bought it.

I gave it as Christmas presents one year and instead of playing Christmas tunes we played it on rotation until little baby Jesus was born.

R41, they got what they wished and then some...

I always wondered if they knew how ridiculous she sounds singing pop

@R40 . The Pet shop Boys did complete 5 songs with Dusty Springfield. They appeared on 'Reputation', an album released in 1991.

I prefer her immortal classic "Hi, Georgia!"

She's overcome so much diversity r48!

[quote]And its not ranked number 14 - checked the list and its not in the top 50, if it's on at all - you must have alternative facts.....

Oh my god

R48, It was thrilling to talk to you...and I'll remember it

@R32 . I enjoyed Michael Ball's take on this song. He's much more emotive than Liza whose version is relatively cool by comparison.

You shaid you loved me or were you jusht being kind......or am I loshing my mind......

The shun comesh up, I think about you...

All afternoon, doing every little shnort

The thought of you shtays bright

Shum-times I pee the middle of the floor

Not schpritzing left

Not piddling right....

I do a line

And think I might poo

Shtay out all night

And guzzle some boozhe

You shhed you loved me

Or waszh it jusht my bee-hi-eye-hind?

Or am I looszhing myyyy-

hiiiiii....

hiiiiiii

Mind?

Sweet Mother of God.

The gestures. The foot work. The schlurring of the wordszhhh.

It's plain to see why this has overtaken David Bowie's and Bing Crosby's duet of "Little Drummer Boy" and Ethel Merman's disco version of "There's No Business Like Show Business" in the top rungs of our most beloved performances.

Liza's a trooper!

The maxisingle remix:

The shun goesh up,

I shink about you!

The coffee cup,

I shink about you!

Jay Z and Beyonce should cover this to make a bad song even worse.

r58 that's actually the maxshishingle remixsh.

Live with PSB:

[quote] Liza Minnelli's "Losing My Mind" had the same global, game-changing impact as "Smells Like Teen Spirit," and is considered to be one of the greatest songs of all time.

No, you've wrong. It was "Don't Drop Bombs" that is considered one of the greatest songs of all time.

I hope Liza's doing okay. She stopped touring several years ago and hasn't done any movies or tv shows in quite a while. Isn't seen much in public. I hope she has a fulfilling life in LA, but something tells me she's sitting up in Sierra Towers swilling Chablis and smoking Reds all day.

I'm sure you've seen her sad and embarrassing appearances with Michael Feindstein posted on DL R64. Liza was sitting and screaming somewhere recently with him, while her several hundred fans applauded in pity.

Aw shucks, I found you a clip. Liza has a bottle under her three way poncho. She's forgotten the words AND the music to NYNY.

G’s version:

A European Millenial/Hipster’s take:

^ I started off hating that version, and by the end, he had me sold.

Thanks for that link R67. Never heard a male version, and it was excellent. Not least because the words hit home.

No, no to the dude at R67 who thinks he's Mandy Patinkin. Great piano playing there, terrible singing. Jeremy Jordan does it so much better, with a Sondheim jazz arrangement.

Jeremy is much cuter too. He sings a lot of songs usually associated with big female voices.

Nope, R67 still has it over R70 for me. JJ seems too laid back, not fully inhabiting the words. His cuteness reinforces that impression. As does the diffuse jazz arrangement. Sweet performance, but it didn't hit home.

Teenspirit was on the radio. I had on my flannel, ripped jeans, Chucks. My hair was long and greasy. Life was good (but I pretended it was bad).

And then it happened. Losing My Mind came on the radio. Just after Teenspirit. Cuz, you know, they're so similar and easy to compare. Anyway, I lost my mind. Totally. And nothing in my life has ever been the same.

Liza cannot sing a note. It’s painful to listen to her.

L*I*Z*A is the favorite singer of the deaf R73. HOW DARE YOU? Deaf people love sequins.

I like the Polish hipster. He came across as straight and, for a straight bloke, he did admirably. JJ is quite cute in an American way, but I felt his version was fighting the beautiful melody of the original. He's gay, I presume, and certainly did emote.

This was the period where Liza thought it was hip to have one side of her hair long and the other not. It's how the kids were wearing it. Love seeing Harvey Fierstein in her video up top.

OP? What size are you? I'm looking through a pile of straitjackets for you. We need it to be...snug.

Jeremy Jordan is adorable and I loved his low key and yet emotive version.

Poor Glenn Close, having to sing this publicly under the watchful eye of Barbara Cook. Clearly she doesn't have the vocal chops for this and yet she did a great job, in character, on the big power ballad in Sunset Boulevard.

The Polish dude could get there with more work but for me his mispronunciations and tendency to go flat as he gained in intensity spoiled it for me. The flowery piano arrangement was a minus.

You bitches want overwrought?

How come you never hear a guy sing it in the original key? Its always these preening tenor-ish performances....

R65 How did her boobs get so ENORMOUS?

What are you talking about, r81? She still has her boyish, gamin figure.

That clip of Liza is Exhibit A in the case for why celebrities need to just close the door after a while.

For God's sake lads, the lady is 72. Give the girl a break ! As long as she can smile and wave I think that she's doing just fine.

This thread has been awarded the Pure Concentrated Mary! (TM) Seal of Approval.

Jeremy Jordan---mmm, dreamy!

I'll bet you Jeremy Jordan hash never felt sho Chrishtmasshy ash to pull THISH off! Ya either got it, or ya ain't!

It was a twist in my sobriety, I'll say!

She looks good for 43 in OP's video, I'll give her that.

One word.....

R84, I am with you. Piling on Liza is picking low-hanging fruit, and even though she’s a often a mess, she’s a genial one, and she hasn’t lost any of her comedic touch, going by her Lucille 2 character on Arrested Development.

Watching the old clips makes me appreciate her as a link to another era in entertainment that has passed.

At her cutest, as Aunt Lucy primps her hair. Photo taken by Vivian Vance?

I know you guys get a kick from teasing Liza, but [a] why kick someone when they're down, [b] she's been a big supporter of gays over decades, and [c] there are so many other people who really deserve cruel treatment.

She's anachronistic R93. Hard to understand what gave her such prominence in the entertainment world. My 71 year old mom thinks Liza is corny and discouraged me from even watching her on LIVE AID when I was a teen. Liza can't sing well, isn't better than a CHEAP Vegas ticket revue style dancer/performer. She certainly isn't good looking and sounds incredibly insincere and mannered when she speaks. Plus she won an Oscar for those weird speech inflections and a haircut. That's before my time but anyone today can see that Diana Ross deserved that prize so much more for her portrayal of Billie Holiday, and Cicely Tyson was astounding too. Garland hadn't been dead long and Cabaret is a great film, so Liza won the first nepotism Academy Award? She can't act, she can barely speak like a real person. Clearly she worked hard to be a STAR and the hard work always shows. That braying warble in her voice is painful though. Don't bother showing me one of her great performances because her singing was always bad to terrible. I get that she was a nice person to the gays and that she loved coke and orgies. She's damaged and a drug addict. She likes black and sequins. She has that annoying laugh and the studied vulnerability. She's campy and loves sequins. She's Sprechgesang. She'd look better on a small stage with less drug damage and sequins. Did she ever hold a note all the way till the end? Did I miss something R93?

In 1979-80, she hit her peak in her Carnegie Hall performance and the concerts leading up to it. Her voice soared and Fred Ebb managed to get her to discipline herself and avoid the mannerisms.

That lovely pic with Lucy must have been taken on the set of The Long, Long Trailer which Vincent Minelli directed to perfection.

@R94 . Thanks for reminding us that Spiro Agnew was not the only nattering nabob of negativity.

Wasn't "Arthur" Liza's peak?

I've seen things posted on other Liza threads that blow my mind. How could a whole stadium cheer for a Judy Garland impersonator cranking her arm to cover the fact that she couldn't begin to hit the big finish to New York, NY? (it's not even that difficult in terms of range) Liza Minnelli is truly like an alternative universe. So many better singers performed every night without her kind of rock star acclaim. Eydie Gorme for one. Stephanie Mills. Bernadette Peters. How Liza got to share stadium stages with Bowie and Mercury and Tina Turner and Sinatra is amazeballs. She was a third rate singer with a lot of energy and sequins. Connections. On Broadway she ws good at being herself and bumping it up to high gear. But those line readings and bad Streisand impersonations. She's a BAD actress. She worked hard to give off such an insincere air that was supposed to reek of sophistication, but mostly just reeked. The breathy speaking voice and wet eyes. Her mother's hand gestures with her bad singing.

There was a biographer who said in the nineties that if he printed all the truth about Liza's personal habits her career would be over immediately. She did love gangbangs, orgies, days of partying and everything from pussy to dog dick. The sun comes up, I think about you. Whole new meaning. An older friend says that LIZA was for unsophisticated audiences who wanted to be wowed. The popularity of cocaine in the 70s and 80s took her a long way, socially and professionally.

She performed some interesting material - schmaltzy and pseudo hip schmaltzy. Some jazzed up nostalgia. Novelties. Badly sung but often well performed. Bette Midler was magic at this kind of thing and Bernadette Peters was a much better singer. Both read as biological females in touch with reality.

I don’t care for R99.

R99 wasn't alive to enjoy the "communal experience" of rushing to the dance floor when they played Liza's disco schtick in 1982 gramps. You can still learn from me R100.

R99 - Lorna

Bernadette Peters, although very talented, was strictly Broadway. She just didn't have the PIZZAZZ to make her a mainstream star like Liza. Same with Patti Lupone.

Y'all bitches done lost yo minds!

R103 True. The camera doesn't love Patti. I know people who really liked Bernadette in "Pennies from Heaven", but I thought she was very self-consciously cutesy.

Liza was sensational live at her peak (1977-81), and really a communal experience in concert with a very broad spectrum of an audience.

She was excellent in "Cabaret" and her performance holds up perfectly. If you think Liza can't act you haven't seen her as Lucille Austero in Arrested Development. She gives am inspired and unhinged comedic performance.

Sure, Liza is weird and corny, but for years she was wildly talented, electric, kooky, and exciting. She doesn't have an enemy in the world, and those who know her love her for her generosity and kindness. If you can't watch her in "Liza With a Z" and not be won over by her rendition of "Ring Them Bells" then I guess you're like that previous poster's shitty 71 year-old mother.....just a lousy old CUNT!

Cabaret was a movie about a lousy singer who was so demented that she fantasized about being great in the bright lights. She lived a life of dramatic delusions. She fucked who she had to to get buy OR on a whim. A superficial amoral woman. Good time, and humor. That's who Liza is. She pulled it off somehow, because her voice is very unpleasant with many more defects than pluses. She put a lot of lights around herself, developed a ridiculous style of speaking and behaving and imitated her mother as best she could. People like Joan Rivers and Barbara Walters loved her. Andy Cohen would be in the front row if he were around in her prime. Liza's audience was mostly comprised of bourgeois Jews and screaming white fags.

But even most of them would admit she can't sing on record. YUK. She knows the scale and has musicality but her voice is awful. Liza was a performer, an experience. A face for radio and a voice that sounds better with sequins and dancing boys, colored lights. Liza was a huge success, I get it. But her success is objectively unexplainable. She didn't seem smart or insightful. Is your fag missing a hag? There is a nice woman in there somewhere, practiced over and over. Was she ever genuine? She seemed kind of brain dead with no opinion on anything. Always up for a good time. Until there were none left.

If you take a close look at her remaining fans and promoters you understand exactly who you are R106. Some ancient gay looking for Judy.

Even on DL, I can’t believe this vitriol. Really? Of all performers to tear apart... wow. Your president would be proud of you. Liza is literally the greatest Broadway star of the last 50 years. But perhaps Marla Maples is more your idea of talent. Plebeians.

[quote] Liza is literally the greatest Broadway star of the last 50 years.

That's a hysterical assertion. Were you her dealer?

R107. You pompous, ignorant, self-righteous, sanctimonious piece of shit. You wouldn't know talent if it slapped you in the face. Liza is a singer, dancer, actress and talented performer extraordinaire. No one could touch Liza. You are a incompetent fool.

Sorry, Ben Platt at R108, but there was once actual talent on Broadway who great songwriters wrote great material for, repeatedly. Liza is the foremost modern example of that. Even in the 1970s and 80s. You wouldn’t understand. Call Julie James. Ask her.

It's 1972 and US pop culture in the US was still very hippy, granola...John Denver, Carol King, James Taylor....and gritty...French Connection, Dirty Harry...etc. It was the time of Earth shoes.

And then along comes Cabaret.

Cabaret was really the start of 1970s glamour and decadence.... and Liza represented that.

It's hard today to understand those few years in the 1970s when Liza was IT.

*It's 1972 and US pop culture was still very

Liza wasn't the greatest dancer, singer, or actor on Broadway, but she had a powerful presence, and she could do all those things well enough, adding in her own theatricality, such that her performances were box office sellouts, both on Broadway and in concert, for literally decades...using the word literally with its actual meaning. She was one of the best live performers of the late 20th century. She was quirky from the start and become quirky in different ways along the years. But if you had attended some of her greatest performances....The Act on Broadway, Carnegie Hall 1980. Carnegie Hall 1987, Radio City 1991...you would have seen the effect she had on a live audience. I've only seen a handful of live performers who can enrapture a live audience that way.

OK, We get it. Self hating gays with marginal writing skills who are also mean drunks hate Liza. Message received. Now go sleep it off and next time take your "insights" over to one of the Kavanaugh threads.

This song comes up

We talk about her

the coffee cup

we talk about her

She's such a wreck

its like she's losing her mind

The morning ends

We talk about her

With DL friends

We talk about her

And does she know?

We think she's losing her mind....

That time Liza made everyone forget about Beyonce . . .

Oh, that Liza!

My God that Metropolis perfume commercial has to be seen to be believed.

I, for one, CAN NOT WAIT to laugh uproariously at a near miss with a busy waiter.

This one's new to me.....

Did any straight man ever wear Metropolis after seeing that as with its over-the-top gayness?

I came for the first time after hearing this song.

Liza when young was a very good actress...Junie Moon, Sterile Cuckoo, Cabaret...and she showed good comic chops in Arthur.

[quote]it's very very dull as a stand-alone song. I don't care what list it's on it's really a boring way to spend 3 minutes. Sondheim can really be a snore.

Agree r23. I feel like this song wasn't a particularly heavy lift for Sondheim. Just list a bunch of shit, then stick on a "I think about you"; repeat ad nauseam, then throw in a "Am I losing my mind" and—ta-da!—a song! "The coffee cup...I think about you," that is a helluva lyric.

Well the song is a soliloquy. Liza did a lot of sprechen song, because she was a lousy singer but a not bad actress. A great singer who also knew how to convey the torment of the song was Barbara Cook. No one has really done it better.

I love that song and the whole album. Yes, I know - Mary! But it was good.

The rhyme of "up" and "cup" is inspired.

Feel about the song however you choose, but within the context of the show and as a pastiche torch song, I thing it's absolutely fine.

^thinK

[quote]The rhyme of "up" and "cup" is inspired.

Bless your heart.

OMG. I forgot about Metropolis. I used to wear that all the time. BTW, I think that's Liza's husband at the end.

What was the ad agency thinking with that Metropolis ad?

"Wear this fragrance and women as hot as LIZA will want to fuck you!"?

[bold]METROPOLISCHSCH[/bold]

I assume Metropolis was for the metrosexual, r133.

This is really just an awful, joyless track, from a period when there were so many better songs of this genre. Liza was never a pop singer, never a disco diva, never a dancefloor draw. She COULD have been, with the right material and some actual effort on her part, but she never was any of those things, not even for the 5 minutes in late 1989 when anyone had ever heard this recording.

I don't know R136, it's pretty clear she had absolutely no idea (or ability?)as to how to sing a pop song

This was really more of a pop track with a dance beat which is what one would expect from the Pet Shop Boys. Joyless ? It's about an obsessive lingering sadness for a too soon departed lover. I loved it then and I love it now for it's power and sophistication.

Liza's spirit always seemed most comfortable on stage. If you've seen her live you know that. Cabaret, her best movie performance, included a lot of stage time. Contrary to what some here have claimed I think her dramatic performance in Cabaret also holds up well. She's very much the center of that film. Bob Fosse called her the best practitioner of his choreography. For her singing, dancing and acting, she more than deserved the Oscar.

She is her mother's daughter and has always more at home with the ballad and theatrical tunes of the 40's and 50's. I have her Capitol and A&M collections and, while there's a lot to like there, it's true that throughout her career she struggled to find a comfortable place in contemporary pop. Arguably, 'Losing My Mind' (and 'Results') is where she came closest to that.

Time for Bingo charlie. Bring your autograph book.

R138, accept that people mostly find this recording unappealing. It’s not a good dance track, not a good pop song, and no where near Liza’s best work. It is, quite simply, a joke.

And yes: “joyless.” What the fuck is fun about this song? You actually can sing about depression without depressing people.

@R140. R138 here.

'Most people' ? You did a poll ? I happen to have a different opinion and so do many others. It's been released in 3 different editions over the years, most recently in 2017. What does that tell you ?

Who said it's fun ? You criticized a song about obsessive loss for being 'joyless'. Of course it's joyless. That should be obvious.

R107 typed: "Liza's audience was mostly comprised of bourgeois Jews and screaming white fags."

F&F the creepy slime bucket.

I loved the song, and she looked gorgeous performing it on Arsenio.

Love her hair in the video and all the spooky props and atmospherics. Her voice is too funny for me to feel whatever I’m meant to feel.

[quote]This was really more of a pop track with a dance beat

The first time I ever heard that song was at Backstreet in Atlanta. It was a remix. Liza's bombastic approach to pop worked on that one song.

I have not been changed.

R138, I am with you.

And for doubters, see the Liza with a Z special directed and choreographed by Fosse.

She really does best with cabaret-type songs. I always liked this one by Charles Aznavour. She’s at least two decades young for the lyrics, but she makes it work by sheer enthusiasm.

And I love the Results album. Liza and the Pet Shop Boys at the close of the eighties. It couldn’t get any gayer - and hits that gay apex knowing exactly where it’s going.

[quote]She really does best with cabaret-type songs.

That's why her first two albums for A&M are great. I still listen to them. Herb Alpert understood her talent and the choice of songs on those albums are off-beat and interesting and fit her voice.

"Bob Fosse called her the best practitioner of his choreography"

Rhubarb!

Or Lennon/McCartney's "For No one". Her voice isn't the greatest but it has character and I find her interpretation sweet. The orchestration is gorgeous.

Those A&M albums in my opinion are the best work she's ever done. Liza pre-Cabaret, pre-pizazz.

And she's great with the Randy Newman numbers.

OP: Is this a joke? You must be out of your mind if you think this is even in the top 500 songs of all time.........(I assure you it is not).......!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Liza's version is ranked 14th on RollingStones' 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Ok... not in the top ten, but still up there with the best.

i just went to the 500 list......it definitely is not ranked 14th.............

14th on the R. S. list is "blowing in the wind" by Bob Dylan

If Liza had played Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction, Losing My Mind could have been the movie's theme tune.

@R147 . R138 here.

Thank you. You are so right about her talent both for cabaret and Aznavour. The first time I saw her she was in Boston touring the show that was released as Liza Live at Carnegie Hall. She covered Aznavour's 'What Makes a Man a Man' , a song I had never heard before. What a thrill for a gay man. I will never forget it. A few years later I heard Aznavour sing it at Carnegie Hall.

R138 here. Correction: The show she was touring was released as Liza Live from Radio City Music Hall.

[quote]i just went to the 500 list......it definitely is not ranked 14th.............

Look at the updated list.

see link below

I just checked for that update in Rolling Stone. Her version of Losing My Mind indeed ranks at #14.

Also of note, Liza’s version of Baby, Don’t Get Hooked on Me care in at #177:

“Taking on heavyweight Mac Davis is no simple task, but Liza’s interpretation of the Dylan-esque lyric turns the song upside-down and inside-out, taking the listener on a rollercoaster tour of a troubled and troubling psyche. It is by turns lugubrious, foreboding, plaintive, and simmering with dazzle-dazzle, as she warns an ardent admirer of a darkness in her soul, so enveloping that we are afraid to peer over the edge.”

No wonder Sondheim is grumpy.

This thread is hilarious. Liza is not a singer. She was an act. And young sexy cool gay men were not listening to her on recordings, ever. In any decade.

And Bob Fosse never said any such thing sober. Liza a great Fosse dancer, are y'all nuts? Jazz hands without the rest of the hard work. She's was a better dancer than Madonna but not as good as Bernadette or Ann-Margret. Just fine for her own little productions and one TV special. But a Broadway calibre dancer? Hell no. She wasn't even a broadway calibre singer.

I'll never forget hearing Liza Minnelli's "Losing My Mind" and immediately understanding the meaning of life, and all the mysteries of the universe.

This truly crazy chick used to play it again and again on the jukebox at the student bar I hung out at. One time someone unplugged the jukebox to stop her. I heard it dozens of time that year and still love it. And now that I've lost my own mind, its meaning is even more special to me.

the link in R160 takes you directly to rollingstone.com, and shows you what #14 is........are you stupid or something??????.........I wish I had whatever the fuck you are smoking........the state of delusion must be open and inviting visitors in at record pace this evening...........

what nitwits...........

We are losing our collective mind. Let's not fight it.

Liza will always be #14.

Yes, Barbara Cook owns this song - others can do it fine - she OWNs it - hands down, just perfect. Liza -however - maybe this time she’ll win - the KitKatKlub, the light rays emanating from the slowly rising green fingernails ( ok, maybe a little bit ala Mom) but, none the less, a MOMENT!

R166 you have to refresh the list. Clear your cookies.

The original recording of Liza's 'Losing My Mind' was put in the Smithsonian about ten years ago or so...

How fucking sad that some weirdo has to lie that his favorite Twentienth Century Diva ranked number FOURTEEN in some fictitious poll in an old print media fossil no one under 50 reads anymore.

Is this really what we’ve come to?

R172 Find another website. You are too stupid and tedious for this one.

I never understood Liza's signature song: "I'm Liza with an L, not Lisa with an L"

The first time I heard this song it changed my life.

I just listened to it again. It changed right back.

Liza’s really working a sexy image in this video. Was Liza considered sexy in 1989? Did straight men find her hot? Cher is a bit older and she was on comeback #3 or 4 by this point, shaking her ass on a battleship with 1,000 sailors ogling her. Why wasn’t Liza working a similar image?

Why did Liza never pose nude?

[quote]Why wasn’t Liza working a similar image?

Heroin suppositories take a lot out of a girl.

[quote]Why did Liza never pose nude?

In response to millions of requests.

I don't understand the haters here.

Ranking 14th in Rolling Stones' Greatest Songs of All Time is a damn good showing.

R160 Your link doesn't work.

[quote] you have to refresh the list. Clear your cookies.

I cleared my cookies, and now I see that it is ranked #7. Impressive!

The song is climbing that chart because of all the Millennials listening to Liza today.

My nephew is in college and he said you can't walk down the hall in the dorm without hearing Liza belting out "Buckle Down Winsocki" or "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out."

Ring them bells and clear those cookies!

She resembles Betty Boop

Even Helen Lawson admits that Liza sang the 14th greatest song of all time.

'Ha! Now Liza's a good broad. Too caught up in in liquor though. Too many fags around her. She ain't a man's woman like me. 'Losing my mind' is good though.'

This song marked an entire generation. When I was 8 years old I mimed and danced to it at my school’s talent show in Greece. I studied and copied her moves from her Grammy performance that year (1989). All the other kids gave me a standing ovation with tears in their eyes, even the boys.

Let’s not forget what a sex symbol Liza was around the Results era. Teenage boys were crazy about her. I remember walking into my older brother and his best friend jacking off over the album jacket.

This is a gift to drag queens, everywhere. Rejoice, girls!

NASA placed the following items onboard the Voyager Spacecraft in case it should ever encounter any intelligent extraterrestrial life form:

1. Spoken greetings in more than 50 different languages.

2. A compilation of natural sounds from Earth.

3. 116 images of scientific knowledge, terrestrial environment, human anatomy and accomplishments.

4. Liza Minnelli's "Losing My Mind"

I know the OP was kidding, but I had never heard it so I clicked the link. And... it’s sort of genius in an 80s way. I think I love it.

If you keep scrolling through that RS 500, Liza turns up again:

#378: Leavin’ on a Jet Plane - Liza Minnelli

“Minnelli’s foray into folk-pop arrived in 1969 with her unforgettable take on the John Denver-penned classic, Leavin’ on a Jet Plane. Peter, Paul, and Mary may have recorded the best-known version, but Liza’s is simply the best. Full stop.

Folk musicians Pete Seeger and Odetta were so enthralled that they convinced Minnelli to record a full album of American worker songs, to include narratives relating the lives of Chicano grape-pickers, Appalachian coal miners, and African-American railroad porters, all told in the persona of a Dust Bowl hobo named Scabby.

Minnelli, however, was dissatisfied with the recording after record execs layered Ray Conniff choruses over her tearful spoken intros to each song, and she had the recordings buried in the vault, where they remain to this day.

The “Hobo Album,” as it’s known by industry insiders and old-timers, may be lost to history, but we can content ourselves with her only folk flirtation, Leavin’ on a Jet Plane.

Because when Liza Minnelli climbs aboard that plane, she doesn’t merely fly; she soars.”

Mary Travers did not leave her apartment for months after hearing Liza's version of "Leavin' on a jet plane".

After watching the video, she and Madonna both have a great sense of bringing focused drama and knowing exactly what the camera is seeing.

Liza Minnelli's "Losing My Mind" gave me eyes to see, ears to hear, breath to breathe...it is all, it is everything.

NYU taught a course in 2014 called "Losing my mind. Infatuation and loss in Western Civilization". My ex took the class. He got a C. He should have taken it pass/fail and it wouldn't have messed up his GPA.

I laughed...I cried...

It's not even the best song on "Results". Not by a long shot.

CATS!

Liza never made it to Cats because of that lamp.

How FASCINATING, R195. Please tell us what his GPA ended up as, how he recovered from this catastrophe, and what you did to help him. Because we can tell you are an astute, supportive person.

I look forward to her covers of “Oops ... I did it again”, “Come to my Window” and “Jagged Little Pill” Really, she’s a national treasure.

This thread has the potential to be a classic.

I always preferred the extended version, featuring the rap interlude by Heavy D & The Boyz:

She's losing her mind, and her name is Liza

Bustin' rhymes like an erupting geyser

All her friends be like, "Yo, Liza, what up?"

But she just be starin' at the coffee cup.

Sneakin' and freakin' cause her man has left her

He was a bigger playboy than that old dude Hefner

Now she's lonely, but there's never a wrong time

To jam with Liza, the Pets, and my main man Sondheim.

Nancy Reagan was always keen to keep up with exciting new developments in both popular music and musical theatre, so 'Losing My Mind' was a must for her.

Her interest however carried its share of poignant irony when she realised that her dear husband was becoming more than just charmingly forgetful. Liza's song proved a constant painful reminder, rather than a giddy escape which made her feel young.

Tactfully she passed her copy of 'Losing My Mind' on to her appreciative son Ron Jr, and moved on to less troubling musical diversions. Privately she recognised that Liza's rendition represented a sad watershed in her long and happy marriage.

@ R203. Wow, I guess there's no tale like a fairy tale. Well done !

Favorite line, "tactfully she passed her copy...to her appreciative son Ron..."

With this song, Liza was able to capture a much younger audience. I remember that in the fall of 1989, the videos for "Losing My Mind" and Motley Crue's "Dr. Feelgood" were locked in a fierce battle for the #1 spot on "Dial MTV" (MTV's video request/countdown show before "TRL" came along). Most days, Motley Crue snagged the #1 spot. But other days, Liza was on top.

^^^ Remember when Mariah went on TRL during that time and said "I don't know her". Lot of backlash for that.

Maybe when it's midnight eastern time, we could have a DL singalong and listen if anyone in your neighborhood is participating.

Liza, aware that it was originally given to Phyllis, sang it equally dressy and juicy as a sly wink to theatre insiders.

Phyllis Nelson? I completely forgot the extended version she did with her of “Don’t Stop the Train!”

She should do a remake

Phyllis Rogers Stone....

[quote]NASA placed the following items onboard the Voyager Spacecraft

In a brilliant moment of clairvoyance, NASA placed all of Liza's albums on the Challenger.

As the record was riding at the top of the charts, Liza had a seance to celebrate.

LIZA: "Mama! Mama! Mama!"

JUDY: "WHAT?"

LIZA: "Did you hear my record, Mama? It's TERRIF!"

JUDY: "I TOLD you not to be better than me, you little twat!"

It was the last time they spoke.

I remember when the Berlin Wall was coming down, the crowds sang along to “Losing My Mind” and chanted for Liza to make an appearance. Souvenir dealers in Berlin still refer to the chipped rubble pieces they sell as “Verstand velorens” ( lost mind!) to this very day.

2018 election campaign song

[quote]NASA placed the following items onboard the Voyager Spacecraft

Liza actually piloted that spacecraft. NASA decided they wanted an astronaut with PIZAZZ in the space program.

I confess to loving this version. I know it's not Barbara Cook, but the bizarre line readings, Pet Shop Boys production, and the wild, weird video (and her hair!) just make me joyful.

This thread is giving me life. I need some Metropolis from Lauder for Men to really jazz me up!

Liza's first surprise anal

So much trashing of Liza. She's an icon who has been performing since the 1960s. She's been in the news since birth. She "hit" in 1972 and her every move was scrutinized. I, for one, enjoyed her live performances a lot -- Carnegie Hall, Radio City, Broadway -- and her concerts were great.

This was Prince Harry's and Meg's first wedding dance song.

^And the song they conceived to.

Liza's fine but she's no Connie Francis. Connie would have sung rings around her with that song but her dad told her not to record it.

You're thinking of Lucy, r222. The Pet Shop Boys were first known as the Pet Shop Tots, sort of a precursor to the Wiggles. Lucy liked their "vibe" and was going to do an album, but Gary Morton talked her out of it.

Liza is kind of disgusting. Like there's a doberman knotted up inside her when she "sings."

r223, I'm definitely NOT thinking of Lucy. I'm a huge fan of Miss Connie Francis and in my opinion, there's not a song that can be sung where she wouldn't have been better than the original artist. It's a crime the things that have happened to her, and that have kept that golden voice still all these many years.

Connie Francis never sang with the Pet Shop Boys, so there.

The Pet Shop Boys wanted to work with Connie but she was having a problem with her bi-polar medication so she had to drop out of their project. That's why they went with Dusty Springfield.

Connie was born to sing 'The Truck Driver and his Mate' .

[quote]I'm a huge fan of Miss Connie Francis and in my opinion, there's not a song that can be sung where she wouldn't have been better than the original artist.

Apparently the public didn't think so.

The Connie Francis Troll is making shit up again. The Pet Shop Boys never approached her to work on an album. They were cowed by her majestic presence and never were able to work up the courage to ask.

This needs a remaster like Whitney Houston's "Higher Love" remix

I like Connie Francis, but I luurve Liza. The original OP's video doesn't seem to be available (to me, anymore)..

R225 I completely agree. Connie's voice was superb, especially on he LPs. Brother Can You Spare A Dime, I Will Wait For You, Born Free ....just superb. Her voice was much better than what was displayed on most of her million sellers. I recall seeing Judy and Liza singing Connie's Who's Sorry Now in a duet!

Tranny Whore Remix

Looking very Sofia Coppola