I Believe You. No promotion

And, too, when I look at the Carpenters' "what ifs" for 1978:
(1) Trying To get The Feeling Again
(2) Ordinary Fool
(3) Your'e The One
(4) Where Do I Go From Here
(5) I Just Fall In Love Again
I would not discount any of the above as Single-worthy (between 1975 and 1978)....

Then, again, going with From This Moment On
(no matter how well Karen sang it)...
on the Tonight Show...not a smart choice at that time....

Didn't Rita Coolidge score some her biggest Hits between 1977 and 1980 ?
There we have a similar voice scoring some big hit singles in the time period.

I was on the phone with my friend (and fellow forum member) @Mike Cidoni Lennox last week and we both were in agreement that I Just Fall In Love Again could have been a hit for the duo. I know there was an issue with the length of the cut given where FM was at at the time, but still could have somewhat put these guys back on the map. Again, hindsight being 20/20, I think a lot of different decisions might have been made all the way around had Karen and Richard been in a better place at the time.
 
I still think that "I Just Fall In Love Again" sounds like Karen was in the latter stages of a head cold. I can hear the nasal quality in her voice.

I think she would have needed to rerecord her lead vocal to at least make the record sound better.
 
I think there was even a case of urban versus rural. In a big market like Philly or New York, Carpenters were seen as un-hip a lot faster than they were in smaller markets. Large market stations would be reading stats in Billboard and Radio & Records which published lists of what the big stations were spinning. So if a station in New York or Boston hadn't jumped on a record, then they would hold back as well.

100% agree. I lived near Peoria, Illinois, at the time. The Peoria AC station never stopped playing the new Carpenters songs. "I Believe You" got decent play. "Back in My Life Again" did. It seemed to slow a bit after that, but I still heard "Those Good Old Dreams" a few times and "Make Believe It's Your First Time" quite a bit. Never "Beechwood", though.
 
I played two 45-s this morn:
I Believe You
(WLP/Mono 45) and,
I Just Fall In Love Again
(flip of Those Good Old Dreams,Jp 45).

Between those two 45s,
I Just Fall In Love Again
is the one which really grabs my attention.
(this 45, I think has more reverb throughout ?)
And, while I Believe You is a very nice album cut,
I still do not believe it to have enough 'punch' as a single release.
 
This is a great song to "dissect" !

Now, given that the song was on Billboard's Chart for four weeks, peaking at #68,
I still need to ask--or, at least, understand--
Why the chart action was so abysmal !


In other words, while I believe we can agree that the song is a fine vehicle for Karen's vocals,
and, the song itself seems to be in the vein in which the public and fans have grown accustomed to,
there still lacks a compelling reason as to Why the Single performed so poorly.
After all, Fans had to locate a copy from the Fan Club !
So, radio was not playing it and stores were not stocking it !

Goofus and Beechwood--I fully understand the lack of public response
(in that, neither was single-worthy material)
but,
I Believe You,
what happened ?
The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack album dominated the airwaves in 1978 - it was the height of disco... optimism was high... the economy was booming, people had money to spend... and they wanted to dance, and party, and have a good time. In other words, times (and tastes) were changing, but the Carpenters were stuck in a time warp.

I Believe You, although a nice melody, and a fantastic Karen vocal, was so out of touch with what was popular at the time... it was too slow, and too soft... and then there's the lyrics... this was the time of "women's liberation", yet here was a song about a woman willing to follow her man, regardless of where it led her... "blind faith makes me follow you, I'd live in a cave if you wanted to". Would those lyrics have resonated with young women at the time? Maybe with their mothers, but I doubt they were buying many records.
 
All subjective, of course, but I think Karen's vocal on the "freckled little girl" line is spot on. And the semantics work for me as well...it's very obvious what that whole verse is about, but the lyrics suggest something that's transcendent, not just a momentary thrill.

So why did it tank? Any number of reasons. None of their previous four singles had cracked the Top 30. Their previous album was the first since "Ticket" not to go gold. I'm sure radio considered them in the past tense by then. The TV specials didn't help. And it wasn't the sort of song that was going to catch fire while everything else was disco. But I think it's one of their more mature efforts, and as others have said, nicely captures Karen's voice at its peak form.

There is probably another topic on this, but, the real question is, why did “All You Get From Love...” tank? I guess because it was too late to save their chart action. But what a terrific single it was. If only it had come out in 76 instead of “There’s A Kind Of...”.
 
the real question is, why did “All You Get From Love...” tank? I guess because it was too late to save their chart action. But what a terrific single it was. If only it had come out in 76 instead of “There’s A Kind Of...”.

I've thought that, too. Even though the "Hush" single went to #12, considering that it was the lead-off single for an as-yet unreleased project, that peak probably did show how little gas was left in the tank. When was the last time the first single off a Carpenters LP didn't go top three? "Ticket". All the signs were there with "Hush" that their Top 40 dominance was winding down quickly. AYGFLIALS had quite a bit more energy in the performance, and you do have to wonder if something like that would have slowed the decline if released sooner.
 
I still think that "I Just Fall In Love Again" sounds like Karen was in the latter stages of a head cold. I can hear the nasal quality in her voice.

I think she would have needed to rerecord her lead vocal to at least make the record sound better.

100% agree with this and it’s one of the reasons I don’t listen to it often.
 
In other words, times (and tastes) were changing, but the Carpenters were stuck in a time warp.

That, in a nutshell, is why they nosedived in the late seventies. Richard failed to a) recognise that their audience was growing up and b) move with the times. He (with Karen in tow) insisted in interviews that they had their niche and that there was room for everyone but fans want to see an artist grow up as they do. The Carpenters stagnated from 1978 onwards and the terrible TV specials did them no favours whatsoever.
 
Really, “I Believe You” would’ve been better as the B-side to “Sweet, Sweet Smile”. Considering they had a Top 10 Country hit with Smile, it would’ve been better than reissuing “I Have You”. IBY was never A side material.
 
I'm not much of a lyric guy but how can you not love "I believe you / when you say your love will keep on going strong / and that forever isn't long enough to love me / like you need to / Baby, I believe you"

What women wouldn't want to hear their man say that to them? Gorgeous stuff! On top of that, Karen is all there for it. "Long enough to love ME", as I've said earlier in this thread, just kills me.

Ed

I just sampled Dorothy Moore’s “soul” take on it for the first time and also listened again to the Carpenters version. Both have their merits. I realized it might have been chosen as the MIA side 2 opener (to bookend “The Wedding Song”) because of the “just ask me and I’ll marry you” lyric.
 
Sadly, too, the previous Singles proved chart-challenging:
Only, There's A Kind of Hush (early 1976) achieved Top 20 pop status.
I Need To Be In Love and Goofus were not particularly successful,
All You Get From Love, Occupants and Sweet, Sweet Smile were hardly burning up the charts.
(Although, the Promotional Video for AYGFL Is A Love Song is excellent. And, country music stations
were 'adding' Carpenters....too bad they did not pursue the Country Market aggressively.

As a Single release, I Believe You
is quite a bit different from those previous releases !
 
I still think that "I Just Fall In Love Again" sounds like Karen was in the latter stages of a head cold. I can hear the nasal quality in her voice.

I think she would have needed to rerecord her lead vocal to at least make the record sound better.

I agree, although there's a couple of tracks that don't quite sound 'right' to me on passage.
It's almost as if Karen's vocals have been put through some sort of machine that has given them an artificial sort of 'edge', I can't quite put my finger on it, it's as if Richard wanted that pre 'now and then' album vocal sound, but did it artificially.
I could of course just be talking a load of rubbish!
 
I agree, although there's a couple of tracks that don't quite sound 'right' to me on passage.
It's almost as if Karen's vocals have been put through some sort of machine that has given them an artificial sort of 'edge', I can't quite put my finger on it, it's as if Richard wanted that pre 'now and then' album vocal sound, but did it artificially.
I could of course just be talking a load of rubbish!
We still don’t now what was going on with “B’Wana She No Home”, especially since the older LP’s sound like they have a broader stereo mix, whereas all the CD versions tend to have the track in Mono.
 
We still don’t now what was going on with “B’Wana She No Home”, especially since the older LP’s sound like they have a broader stereo mix, whereas all the CD versions tend to have the track in Mono.
I have the original a and m cd of passage, from the british compact disc collection, which is more true to the LP version, it's quite a bit brighter than the remastered classics cd version. For some reason that cd version , to me anyway, sounds quite muffled all the way through, especially on Bwana. So much of the percussion comes through more on the original cd version.
 
I have the original a and m cd of passage, from the british compact disc collection, which is more true to the LP version, it's quite a bit brighter than the remastered classics cd version. For some reason that cd version , to me anyway, sounds quite muffled all the way through, especially on Bwana. So much of the percussion comes through more on the original cd version.

Ah ha! So the "Audio Master +" sounds better than the "Remastered Classics" CD. Good to know. The track does sound crushed and muddy. It's this "crushed" sound that produces what Tom is hearing as mono. To his point, the separation isn't very pronounced like it is on the rest of the album. Anyway, I brightened it up myself and used a plugin to spread the sound out and once I did that, it didn't sound the least bit mono. It's possible to "lift the veil" with creative EQ'ing. Now, off to get a "Audio Master +" CD of "Passage"... :wink:

Ed
 
For what it's worth, two quick fixes to the lyrics --- 40 years later:

"I'd live anywhere that you wanted to."

"And love will grow into a friendly little girl who looks like we do."

I like "live in a cave"...LOL! Though I do like your line, it's got some ambiguity. "Anywhere?", he asks. "Live in a cave" quantifies it. He has no doubt just how much she loves and trusts him. The lyric also has to "meter" or feel good with the melody and the chords beneath it. It should also have a pleasing combination of vowels and consonants that dance with the melody nicely. Again, I like your line but I feel "live in a cave" is better in that sense too.

"Freckled little girl" I don't like but Dorothy Moore has that covered. She replaced that awful line with "brown-eyed little girl". It "meters" better and it's less hokey.

Just my insignificant little opinions.. :wink:

Ed
 
Just heard the song again as I was listening to Made in America. It's a good song as an opener to Side Two- but definitely should have been left as an album cut.
 
I have the original a and m cd of passage, from the british compact disc collection, which is more true to the LP version, it's quite a bit brighter than the remastered classics cd version. For some reason that cd version , to me anyway, sounds quite muffled all the way through, especially on Bwana. So much of the percussion comes through more on the original cd version.
I have both the AM+ and the Remastered CD, along with the PBS disc and on all 3 the tracks sounds mono. But the 80’s disc does seem less muddy, but it’s still not like the vinyl.
 
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