^ Agree with all this.
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^ Agree with all this.
Sleepin' would have been a strong concluding song on side two of the Touch Me In The Morning album. It was consistent in theme with Save The Babies, Brown Baby and Imagine; Young Mothers also could have fit well. [[I Won't Last A Day Without You and Little Girl Blue were the two sides that seemed somewhat out of place to my ear on this contemporary statement album.) Too, the haunting tones at the end of Sleepin' would have paired well as a bookend with the stark, somber chord introducing the Touch Me In The Morning opener. It would have been a fitting finale, fading away, leaving the listener to contemplate the sorry state of the world where disappointment and cynicism flourished, in part due to the waning VietNam situation, the Agnew scandal and the Nixon Watergate troubles. The keening trumpet had something of the impact of Taps.
Diana's performance on Sleepin' was stellar and touching, and the song's issued version was beautifully arranged, balancing her quiet, comforting, sorrowful tones and angry near-shouts, the latter punctuated and accentuated also by soulful human-sounding background vocalists. Her spoken words were wrenching, demanding some dignity and privacy for the departed soul and the mourner. The "fix don't fix a fix" lyric was clever in an undistracting way, illustrating, with three separate meanings of one simple word, how commonplace drug use/abuse had insinuated itself into the fabric of the times.
The alternate version of Sleepin' on the Anthology double CD showed how delicate the recording process must have been. The alternate had most of the same elements as the issued version, but the backup singers' parts and one or two other details and aspects were dispatched with slightly less sensitivity, and the version somewhat failed to connect. The issued version got everything right.
But I agree; Sleepin' was not, necessarily, the best choice for a single, although the marketing department made the best of it, claiming in a Billboard ad that it was the sleeper single of the week or some such. That boast did not prove out.
There was supposedly an early 1974 appearance on the Merv Griffin show. It would seem likely that she might have performed it but I have never seen any evidence of it. And other than Ron Miller saying that he saw her sing it and SLEEPIN' in Vegas, I don't think it stayed in her act long.
The single LTISH was the #1 adult contemporary single of the year in 1974 according to Billboard Magazine
I am amazed it was not a much bigger hit on the pop charts both here in the UK and the USA. Over here despite extensive airplay it barely made the top 40 and i know it failed to breach the top 10 in the States. It was ridiculously commercial and Motown probably expected a top 5 hit and possibly even a no.1. It was never one of my personal favorites but i did expect it to do much better.
I was always amazed that "Last Time I Saw Him" charted as well as it did in the USA. To me it's just a nice, fun little song. Nothing amazing..........just nice.
I'm not the least surprised that it failed to create much interest in the UK. I remember my mother buying me the single from our local Co-Op when i was 11, [[i think it was 50p). Why i remember this little moment in time god only knows lol. :confused:
Every morning before I went to school, my mother used to tune into the local AC station and they played this record incessantly. At first, I didn't even know it was Diana as it didn't sound like something she would sing. But my mom insisted it was indeed her. I only believed her when I finally heard the DJ announce Diana as the artist.
She killed it though. That part with her and Floyd and the guitar was great. I wish Diana had recorded and performed more with minimal instrumentation to really show off how great of a singer she was. Her performance of "Reach Out and Touch" on the show is also probably my favorite vocal of hers on the song, aside from the single.
Interestingly, this LP was played by me far more times than Touch Me In The Morning [[I didn't care for 'save the children / brown baby' for example - I just thought they were painfully dull).
I particularly liked 'I heard a love song' and 'stone liberty' and even 'behind closed doors'. The weak point on this LP - for me - was 'turn around'.
Until reading the forum this evening, I've never even thought about the lyrics for 'sleepin' and hadn't even considered what Diana was actually singing! I do understand that it wasn't strong enough for a single, but it is a decent LP track.
LAST TIME I SAW HIM was Motown's attempt to ride the coattails of Tony Orlando's meteoric surge in popularity by doing storytelling razzmatazz styled songs .
https://i.ebayimg.com/thumbs/images/...cGN/s-l225.jpg
The summer before LTISH was released in December 1973, this Tony Orlando & Dawn song shot up to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100[[ three weeks #1 Adult Contemporary) .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_LI1D54bf8
even the storyline is quite similar.
Did she ever sing Brown Baby live? I haven't listened to the album in years, but I remember the album had a sense of cohesiveness/quality. It seemed that much thought was employed in making a quality product unlike some of her other albums. No "hodge podge" filler IMO.