YOU'RE THE ONE - Backing Vocals

[ullalume]

A lovely song and reading from 1977, but my question concerns the very brief use of background vocals in the song.

"All I need to know for tomorrow is that you're mine".

Now in the liner notes the BG's are credited to Karen and Richard. And in '77 the duo were using 8 voices, ordinarily, 4 Karen's and 4 Richards. But on this track it sounds like they started laying the vocals, but never got a chance to complete them. It sounds more like 2 Karens and maybe 1 Richard.

Anyone know what I mean, and maybe Chris can shed some light on it.

Cheers guys
Neil

 

[newvillefan]

I know exactly what you mean Neil, the stacked vocals don't sound so stacked for once. I always thought it was because the song was clearly a springboard for Karen's amazing vocal so Richard didn't want lots of layers of harmonies to detract from that. But you could be right, it could be as simple as they just didn't get round to recording more and Richard felt that what was there was ok to release.

 

[Chris May]

I think it was exactly the way Richard intended it actually. Initially the vocals split from the lead to two parts Karen, gradually building to four or five parts Karen and Richard from the words "know for tomorrow", landing on "...that you're mine". There's definitely a full chord there, but given the sparse nature in which the BGVs are even being utilized in the song, it wouldn't make any sense from a production standpoint to over-emphasize it or push them too hot in the mix like Stephen pointed out. Not to mention Richard most likely would have gone in and completed the chord vocally if need be like he did on Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town prior to mix-down had that been the case. It's all there to my ear.

Hope that makes sense.

 

[ullalume]

It does. Thanks Chris