Yeah, this really should have been a #1 hit. It's ironic that Eric Carmen would wind up peddling the same kind of A/C schlock that Neil Diamond pumped out by mid-decade. I'd like to think tho that "Go All The Way" kinda sorta paved the way for punk, New Wave, even glam. I'm actually surprised nobody had a hit with a remake of it - it still sounds perfectly fresh going on half a century later...
According to Whitburn, "Go Your Own Way" entered the Top 40 on 19 August 1972, and remained in the Top 40 for eleven weeks, by my count until 28 October 1972. I saw the Raspberries in concert on 26 October 1972, opening for Danny O'Keefe (middle act) and The Hollies. Why do the Hollies never play the US? Searchers and Zombies etc. do
Armin Steiner won a Best Engineered Recording Grammy for Moods, the album that features Song Sung Blue. I consider this to be Diamond's other Sing-a-long tune after Sweet Caroline. I love the LP, it sounds wonderful and includes my favorite song Walk On Water. I've always liked Diamond's pseudo-Gospel songs like Holly Holy and this one is right in that bombastic wheelhouse. Play Me and Captain Sunshine are two other songs I really enjoy, too more so than the one that hit the top.
The last Number One for Uni Records, and on top of it all in mono (his prior single, "Stones," was stereo, as would be his next two singles ["Play Me" and "Walk On Water"]). As this was on top, Uni subcontracted with Capitol plants to press this baby. Scranton was the only plant to use the full 3.625" diameter center labels; all other Capitol plants that turned this out used the smaller 3.3125" labels. The Scranton label: By comparison, here's the pressing I have, from the Decca/MCA Gloversville, NY plant: I first became aware of this, mainly, by the 1974 compilation LP His 12 Greatest Hits. On the cassette version, this track led off the album. Meanwhile, on this same Uni label, a future chart-topper was having a hit with a song from an album soon to come out, entitled Honky Chateau - "Rocket Man." The chap's name: Elton John. As well, a future Number One, in the month prior to "Song Sung Blue" reaching #1, was issued to the sound of crickets chirping. We'll get to that one a few Number Ones from now.
Also, a part of the open was cut off on the video posted by @alphanguy. Here it is with the intro intact:
Some pressings of this, in the rim print, had Uni's prior address before being moved to the Universal City HQ of parent MCA. My own copy: Also, it was with "Song Sung Blue" that Mr. Diamond's product would be mastered at The Mastering Lab.
I also think one factor in Mr. Diamond's post-1975 decline (creatively) as expounded on by @sunspot42, was his splitting with producer Tom Catalano, who helmed the ship up to the Serenade LP and "Longfellow Serenade" single. For his next studio album Beautiful Noise, Diamond ended up in the orbit of Robbie Robertson who was just on the cusp of wrapping up The Band. After that, for several years, ex-Four Season Bob Gaudio was his producer.
The way to go in terms of copies of this is the red/bright orange "target label." This had to be one of Capitol's biggest hits with this design. Jimmy Ienner is a chap we will doubtless be hearing from in the future, from "the other side" of the glass . . .
"Song Sung Blue" is one of Neil Diamond's most indelible melodies, so strong at that level that it made it to #1 without the benefit of a bridge. It's the same verse melody over and over, even in the instrumental break. It's a pleasant tune and I like it, but it's utterly lacking in any kind of edge, a feature that would prove to be a major hindrance to Diamond's artistic reputation in the years to come, when his melodies stopped being strong enough to cover for the fluffiness of the records. "Cracklin' Rosie" was a brilliant single, because it had a good tune AND some bite to it, while "Song Sung Blue" was nothing but a good tune. That said, I do like "Longfellow Serenade" for some reason. Taste never works that neatly. Fortunately, the Raspberries gave pop radio some of the musical aggressiveness it needed with "Go All The Way", which was, alas, their only top ten hit. They should have had a much more commercially successful career than they did, but they fell between all the radio-programming cracks of the time. Their hard-guitar sound was too heavy for top-40 radio, which was focused on singer-songwriters at the time (at least with white music) and Eric Carmen's sweet vocals and his Beatlesque and Beach Boy-esque song structures were deemed too unmanly for FM rock radio, or something. (Not to mention the matching suits -- a huge crime against hipness!) But the Raspberries ultimately became respected and even revered as one of the key early purveryors of what we call today power-pop. And with good reason -- records like "Tonight", "Ecstasy", and "On The Beach" rock as hard as anything of the era, while lovely ballads like "Starting Over" are as good as anything released by Paul McCartney. And of course, their commentary on the music business, the slow-building "Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)", remains a masterwork. My favorite Raspberries recording is probably "Cruisin' Music", they best non-Beach Boys Beach Boys record ever made.
Records like "Song Sung Blue" shot to the top of the charts because of their widespread demographic appeal. Little kids loved it as it was simplistic; parents loved it as it was musical and non-threatening; even Granny could latch onto a record like that, and teens didn't mind it. The teen top 40 radio stations played it, right along with the MOR/Adult stations. With all of those demographics spending money on buying the single, it easily worked its way to number one. A similar song a year later, "Sing" by Carpenters, worked its way to number 3 on the same basis - a simplistic song that appealed to all ages.
I had Neil Diamond's album "Moods" and played it a lot. I enjoyed it and Song Sung Blue. Then, something strange happened. I remember listening to Moods (once again), and somewhere in the middle of it, I just couldn't take it anymore. I knew Diamond's work on Bang and a lot of his earlier hits on UNI and wondered what the heck happened? I don't think I listened to Moods ever again, and SSB became a subject of ridicule. ("Song sung green, algae growing on it, song sung green like an Easter bonnet...") My friend and I had a complete set of parody lyrics for the tune, but that's all I remember. I still like Neil's work on Bang and a lot of his UNI hits, but my patience for SSB and most of what came after is beyond my threshold. Notable exceptions are the single "Longfellow Serenade", the Beautiful Noise album and the live Hot August Nights. As far as the Raspberries go, I was totally in love with the group from the get-go. Why on Earth did Capitol insist on marketing them as a teenage idol group instead of being the American version of The Who? These guys had the goods and Eric Carmen's voice and songwriting were the perfect launching pad for power pop. But then the public discounted them as nothing more than teeny-bopper boys (like Badfinger was seen as nothing more than inferior Beatle clones) and they had the deck stacked against them from the beginning. Not everything from the Raspberries is gold, but I'd go out on a limb and say that nearly 90% of their output is classic pop music. Why they aren't respected as much as The Who, well, I'll never understand. Listen to "I Don't Know What I Want" and get back to me. Don't get me started on Eric Carmen solo though. Man, what a difference a band makes...
I once heard a parody of "Song Sung Blue" that used "Sun Myung Moon" in its stead. Can't remember the rest of it though... I wonder how much of Carmen's marketing as some sort of sex idol was his own decision, as the schtick extended to his solo career. The music wasn't much (he did have some good moments here and there), but his album covers were as cringeworthy as it got...
I have no idea what bee got into Eric's bonnet when he went solo. Being the next Barry Manilow? Maybe signing on to Arista had something to do with it? Don't get me wrong, I liked the debut (didn't love it though) and Boats Against The Current is quite a successful effort. But after that? No thanks. Nothing Eric's done as a solo artist comes close to the brilliance of The Raspberries. As far as the 'berries go, compare their images from the first three albums to how they were presented on "Starting Over". THAT'S the way they should have been marketed all along. I always assumed the breakup of the group after Side 3 had more to do with their image and lack of success than their musical ventures.
I played the heck out of Neil's silver greatest hits album as a pre-teen, but even then "Song Sung Blue" struck me as pretty lame. I still sing along whenever I hear it, though. The Raspberries are getting some much-deserved love here, but there was another great pop song languishing too far down the Top 40:
What was amazing was that the artist here was able to get away with titling this song as he did without exuding any confusion with a wholly different Hank Williams song of the same title. Wonder how many gospel stations played this one thinking (at the outset) it was ol' Hank's?
Yeah, I loved this song as a tyke, too. It was written by Sesame Street composer Joe Raposo for the program (he also wrote the show's theme, "C Is For Cookie", "Bein' Green" and other prominent tunes from the show), so I'd already been exposed to it by the time The Carpenters did their cover. It's kiddie music, but you've gotta admit it's extremely well-done kiddie music. I certainly prefer it to the targeted teenybopper crap pumped out by The Osmonds and their ilk.
Yeah, but you'll probably hear that a lot more on radio today - satellite or otherwise - than many if not most top 5 hits from this era.
I disagree, I think "All By Myself" is quite epic, especially the long version with the lengthy classical piano interlude. It's not rock... but as far as ballads go, it's pretty wonderful.
Song Sung Blue - There's something about the way those words are sung that leads people to make up their own version. I sang along to it back then as "Sel Sun Blue"
