You all know and love him, sentimental crooner that is Barry Manilow. But wait, are things really that simple? Is the king of schmaltz all sickly sweet, or is there more at work here? Invariably, there is. What allegations, you gasp, where, you gasp again, is your proof for this? In the songs, of course. Prepare to lose preconceptions as I take you through a couple of examples.
I Can't Smile Without You:
A lovely little number, you might think. But you think wrong. Check out
these lyrics : "I can't smile without you / I can't dance / and I can't
sing. / I'm finding it hard / to do anything." Can't sing? - but this
is a song. Can't dance - but the original version featured a live tap-dance.
Finding it hard to do anything - oh come on, now. Anyone can see that all
of these are simply lies. Lovely little number? Rather the most gargantuan
two-facedness ever in a song, except maybe...
Mandy:
Where can you go wrong with heart-wrenching lyrics like : "Mandy /
You came and you gave without taking / but I sent you away / Oh Mandy /
You kissed me and stopped me from shaking / And I need you today".
Tears well up in eyes the world over. But wait... and listen. It is in fact
a cover version, originally written and sung by Scott English and Richard
Kerr, and called... wait for it... "Brandy". Not only is the song
actually about sentimental attachment to alcohol, but when Barry sings it,
he's hiding this fact. It's like being given a love-poem by someone, and
then finding out that it was written some time ago... by someone else... for
their dead hamster. You can't really get more evil than that.
Let the truth be known. Underneath that sculpted face of sex and success, beats the heart of pure evil. The horror... the horror...
Imagine this: Tori Amos deserted on a desert island, with only her sharp fingernails to fight off the natives - cannibals. Left there with her piano and a flimsy four-track, and staring death in the face, comes out with the most heart-rending, bitter lyrics to go along with minimalist and hauntingly beautiful piano-playing. Recorded straight-off for fear of an impending attack, an album-worth of material magics itself up, before, during the last chorus, the cannibals rise from the forest and encircle her, first asking for her autograph, and then eating her alive, soon after all becoming prodigious piano-players. Now that would be a fucking good album.