Why we still love Barry Manilow

I think my husband & I were on our first date, and we were looking through a music store for some reason. He was pulling out this or that CD that interested him, and I found a CD version of a Barry Manilow album I had when I was probably twelve or thirteen. I was excited about that.

Years later, my husband teased me and said that it was almost a deal-breaker. He just didn't know if he could date a woman who likes Barry Manilow.

There was nothing about Manilow that indicated he would be such a hit with the barely-post-pubescent female crowd way back in the 70's when he hit us over the head with "Could This Be Magic" and "Mandy." For one thing, he was waaaay old - my god, he was 30 years old! He was also terribly skinny. And (apologies to you, Barry), he didn't really have the cutie-pie face that girls go for. And we were also dimly aware that he evoked something a bit, shall we say, homosexual. ("Not that there's anything wrong with that!")

But we didn't want to smooch with him or even hold hands. We just wanted to discuss our deepest feelings with him. Deepest feelings were new to us at that age, and very exciting. The boys our age either hadn't hit puberty yet, or if they had, just wanted to grope our budding boobies. They didn't give a shit about our feelings. But Barry Manilow did, and he sang about them.

Who among us didn't sob "Yes, that's me!" when we heard "All The Time"?

All the time I thought there's only me
Crazy in a way that no one else could be
I would have given everything I own
If someone would have said "you're not alone"

All the time I thought that I was wrong
Wanting to believe but needing to belong
If I'd've just believed in all I had
If someone would have said "you're not so bad"

All the time,
all the wasted time
All the years
waiting for a sign
To think I had it all
All the time

And he sang about that mysterious and exciting realm of adult love, and gave us a picture of what that might be like.

And he did it with big, sophisticated chords, and shiny backup vocals. There was nothing patronizing or bubble gum about him.

And for someone like me, who wrote piano pop tunes prolifically, he was an unknowing mentor. He was a musician's musician. I recall reading that he was trying to clean music up a bit. What a noble philosophy - it thrilled my thirteen-year-old heart.

I commented to my father that I wanted to marry someone like Barry Manilow.

"He wouldn't marry you," my dad said. "He's Jewish. Jewish people only marry other Jewish people."

"Could I be Jewish?" I asked.

"You can be whatever you want to be!" he said. "Go ahead and be Jewish."

As we grew older, some of us learned to hide the fact that we were Manilow fans. It provoked teasing and jeering among our so-called friends. It classified us as musical nerds. Couldn't we at least worship one of the many he-men of music of the day? Couldn't we get on the bandwagon of someone a little more rebellious or subversive? After all, there was nothing about Barry Manilow that would piss our parents off, for crying out loud.

And as we got older, and as we heard Mr. Manilow in interviews and heard him in concert, we learned that he wasn't exactly a rocket scientist. He was a hell of a songwriter and a hell of a singer. But he was just a bit transparently manipulative, just a wee bit hokely dokely, and embarrassingly corny.

So we moved on.

My tasted broadened considerably through high school and into university, where I was a music major, into my first marriage, where I became of fan of bluegrass and other acoustic genres, and into blues and reggae and mbwbwe and a million other forms.

Years later, after I married my second (and hopefully final) husband, I emerged nude and dripping wet from the mikvah during my conversion process. Out of the blue, it occurred to me.

"I could marry Barry Manilow now," I said to my husband.

Recently on a whim, I bought every CD available of Manilow albums that I had when growing up. And I listened to them. I listened to them through new, adult ears. And I have to admit that I really had good taste when I was thirteen years old. As a thirteen-year-old, I understood enough about music theory to "get" a lot of what was happening in his music. And I also "got" a lot of it intuitively.

And of course, I went on to get his CD of Sinatra covers and a few other gems.

The other day, I saw him on a daytime talk show - Megan M . . . whatever her name is. (Sorry Megan. I don't watch a lot of TV, but I do know you were on Will & Grace.) He looked a bit like a gay Rod Stewart.

And he said he can take it when people make fun of him, but not when they make fun of his fans. So once again, he gives a shit about us.

And he has a new CD out - cover tunes from the '60s.

It's in my tote bag now. I haven't opened it yet. I'm typing this from work, and I think I'll play it in the car on the way home.

Sorry I left you, Barry - I guess I'm back!