[AnonymousBosch]

This is probably before most RVF's time.

I remember this from when I was a kid. I thought it was a terrible song then, and my sister and I would mock it mercilessly any time it came on.

It's still a stupid song, but I heard it on the radio yesterday with another 35 years of life experience behind me, and realised just how accurate a description of aging slut regret it actually is.

The lyrics are in the video.

There's some quality hamstering in the comments section.

Lyrics, for those who can't handle the MOR sappiness:

Hey lady, you, lady, cursin' at your life
You're a discontented mother and a regimented wife
I've no doubt you dream about the things you never do
But I wish someone had a talk to me like I wanna talk to you
Ooh I've been to Georgia and California, and, anywhere I could run
Took the hand of a preacher man and we made love in the sun
But I ran out of places and friendly faces because I had to be free
I've been to paradise, but I've never been to me

Please lady, please, lady, don't just walk away
'Cause I have this need to tell you why I'm all alone today
I can see so much of me still living in your eyes
Won't you share a part of a weary heart that has lived a million lies
Oh I've been to Nice and the isle of Greece
Where I sipped champagne on a yacht
I moved like Harlow in Monte Carlo and showed 'em what I've got
I've been undressed by kings and I've seen some things
That a woman ain't s'posed to see
I've been to paradise, but I've never been to me

Hey, you know what paradise is? It's a lie
A fantasy we create about people and places as we'd like them to be
But you know what truth is?
It's that little baby you're holding, and it's that man you fought with this morning
The same one you're going to make love with tonight. That's truth, that's love

Sometimes I've been to cryin' for unborn children
That might have made me complete
But I, I took the sweet life and never knew I'd be bitter from the sweet
I spent my life exploring the subtle whoring that cost too much to be free
Hey lady, I've been to paradise, but I've never been to me

[ColSpanker]

I remember when this song first hit the air waves. It was universally hated by anyone with a trace of testosterone in their body.

[RawGod]

Reminds me of my childhood too. As a kid in the 70s and 80s, I vaguely remember a lot of bitter 2nd wave feminist types, friends of family, teachers, etc. who would have identified with this song. They really had a rage and pain that they was visible and disturbing to me at times, but I didn't understand it.

[Days of Broken Arrows]

According to my Billboard record chart book, this song would not have been a hit had Motown not re-released it in 1982.

This flopped when it was originally released in 1977 on an indie label called Prodigal when it only got to #97. Then Motown picked it up and somehow it hit #3 five years after it dropped.

I have no recollection of this song, but it fits in with other narcissistic songs of the era by women, like "Torn Between Two Lovers" by Mary McGregor. That got to #1.

[The Lizard of Oz]

Here's something better

Ooh-hoo, Jackie Blue
Lives her life from inside of a room
Hides that smile when she's wearin' a frown
Ooh Jackie, you're not so down

You like your life in a free-form style
You'll take an inch but you'd love a mile
There never seems to be quite enough
Floating around to fill your lovin' cup

Ooh-hoo, Jackie Blue
What's a game, girl, if you never lose
Ask a winner and you'll prob'bly find
Ooh Jackie, they've lost at sometime

Don't try to tell me that you're not aware
Of what you're doing and that you don't care
You say it's easy, just a natural thing
Like playing music but you never sing

Ooh-hoo, Jackie Blue
Making wishes that never come true
Going places where you've never been
Ooh Jackie, you're going again

Ooh-hoo, Jackie Blue
Lives a dream that can never come true
Making love is like siftin' through sand
Ooh Jackie, it slips through your hand

Every day, in your indigo eyes
I watch the sun set but I don't see it rise
Moonlight and stars in your strawberry wine
You'd take the world but you won't take the time

Ooh-hoo, Jackie Blue
Lives her life from inside of a room
Makes you think that her life is a drag
Ooh Jackie, what fun you have had

Ooh Jackie, ooh Jackie
Ooh Jackie, ooh Jackie
Hey hey hey hey

[AnonymousBosch]

^^ No shit, Lizard? I just bought that album in a bunch of classic rock LP's at a garage sale last weekend.

[buja]

"I spent my life exploring the subtle whoring that cost too much to be free"

Ha, ha!
This line made me laugh out loud!

Wow...did this song get banned by Feminists?

[spentcasings]

Yes, it is true that it is a song that sounds so cloying from a male point of view, but it wasn't meant to speak to men. If anything, its honesty is something that is lacking in today's world of celebrating the carousel. This woman has deep regrets, and she is cautioning other women against thinking that her life has been so great and exciting, when in the end, the carousel was meaningless--it left her with nothing. But the other women don't realize it as they compare their seemingly boring lives of stable marriage and motherhood.

[Suits]

This song needs to be re-recorded to music that doesn't cause an instant headache and then christened the official RVF theme song.

[AnonymousBosch]

(02-07-2014 11:15 PM)buja Wrote:  

Wow...did this song get banned by Feminists?

The chickens hadn't come home to roost yet with feminists of that era. They were still young.

I remember my Mum shit testing Dad by playing Alice Cooper's 'Only Women Bleed' a couple of time in a row. Dad make a joke about periods.

[Days of Broken Arrows]

Maybe we'd better reconsider this song. I went and looked up who composed "I've Never Been to Me" at the 45Cat Web site (the most reliable place to go for old song credits because you can see the old 45 labels for verification).

It turns out the song was written by two men: Ron Miller and Ken Hirsch.

Miller wrote (or co-wrote) some great old Motown stuff, like Stevie Wonder's "For Once in My Life" and "A Place in the Sun." He was also one of the few white Motown writers (see here). So was Hirsch.

What does it mean that a would-be feminist anthem was penned by two white guys writing for the pre-eminent black label of the '60s and '70s?

For one thing, the lyrics can only be taken as fiction. For another, this might have been an "assignment song" -- they were told to write something along the lines of "I Am Woman."

By the way, "I Am Woman" was also written by a guy, Ray Burton. I'm getting off-topic, but if we have to blame the idea of female empowerment songs on any group of people it ain't women, since these two helped establish the mini-genre. That's sort of funny but also pretty bothersome. Hope they enjoyed those royalties.

[AnonymousBosch]

^^ It's not a female empowerment song though. They older woman has slutted around and lived a wild and free life, and has ended up alone and regretful, no doubt because she hit the wall. She's telling the younger woman who is feeling trapped in her marriage and longing for freedom that her husband and child are what's important, and, for all her adventures, she feels empty and unfulfilled. She's basically singing #backtothekitchen.

Basically, these guys knew exactly what happens to post-wall sluts in their 40's. Game recognised.

Actually, it's reminded me of another 'regretful older woman' song. I like how her age keeps getting younger. LOL.

A LADY OF A CERTAIN AGE

Back in the day you had been part of the smart set
You'd holidayed with kings, dined out with starlets
From London to New York, Cap Ferrat to Capri
In perfume by Chanel and clothes by Givenchy

You sipped camparis with David and Peter
At Noel's parties by Lake Geneva
Scaling the dizzy heights of high society
Armed only with a cheque book and a family tree

You chased the sun around the Cote d'Azur
Until the light of youth became obscured
And left you on your own and in the shade
An English lady of a certain age

And if a nice young man would buy you a drink
You'd say with a conspiratorial wink
You wouldn't think that I was seventy
And he'd say, No, you couldn't be

You had to marry someone very very rich
So that you might be kept in the style to which
You had all of your life been accustomed to
But that the socialists had taxed away from you

You gave him children, a girl and a boy
To keep your sanity a nanny was employed
And when the time came they were sent away
Well that was simply what you did in those days

You chased the sun around the Cote d'Azur
Until the light of youth became obscured
And left you on your own and in the shade
An English lady of a certain age

And if a nice young man would buy you a drink
You'd say with a conspiratorial wink
"You wouldn't think that I was sixty three"
And he'd say, "No, you couldn't be

Your son's in stocks and bonds and lives back in Surrey
Flies down once in a while and leaves in a hurry
Your daughter never finished her finishing school
Married a strange young man of whom you don't approve

Your husband's hollow heart gave out one Christmas Day
He left the villa to his mistress in Marseilles
And so you come here to escape your little flat
Hoping someone will fill your glass and let you chat about how

You chased the sun around the Cote d'Azur
Until the light of youth became obscured
And left you all alone and in the shade
An English lady of a certain age

And if a nice young man would buy you a drink
You'd say with a conspiratorial wink
"You wouldn't think that I was fifty three"
And he'd say, "No, you couldn't be