A few months ago, I was asked by a family member if I was dating anyone. Without any kind of hesitation, I responded with, "No I'm not, and I'm laughing about it!" This was the first time I was light-hearted about my not-so-active love life. It felt so liberating to finally detach from the outcome of love.
My new level of empowerment somehow caused this snarky Burt Bacharach/Hal David tune to pop into my head last month: "I'll Never Fall in Love Again." They wrote this song for the 1968 musical, Promises, Promises and Dionne Warwick even recorded the song in 1970, winning a Grammy for her performance that same year!
Fun fact: the part in the song that rhymes "pneumonia" with "phone ya," was jokingly added in by Hal David, as Burt Bacharach caught the flu while finishing up this song. I have my own connection to this fun fact, as I too was slightly under the weather when I first started to record this song in mid-September, and I ended up keeping in my very authentic recording of that part where my vocals were a bit raspy!
Karen and Richard recorded this song in 1970 for their Close to You album. They also included the song in their Bacharach Medley, which was on their 1971 "Tan" album. With an unwavering determination, Karen's vocals express all the angst and disappointment of falling in love. If you listen closely, you'll hear some snarky and brilliant vocal inflections and vocal fry techniques, which elevates the vibe of this song. I absolutely love her performance and wanted to emulate the same vibe while I was recording it!
This song definitely resonates with my own experience in "the love department" over the years. While I used to get really upset about it, now I’m like, “I chose me!” I wanted to make sure that message came through loud and clear in my snarky delivery of this song and the vibrant 90's theming in my music video. The truth is, I should always be embracing who I am, unashamed, and I will never settle for less than what I deserve in a loving relationship! I hope you all have discovered this truth as well.
Although I was born in the 80’s, I remember the 90’s the most. I found so many cool graphics that helped visualize the song and represent some of my own hobbies and interests as a kid! I got to "burst" a heart bubble, just as I envisioned, and I even had, "enough tears to fill an ocean" in one scene.
Performing this song was a complete surrender for me. I realized that it's really ok, in a way, to sort of give up on love and admit, “I have no idea what’s going on!” Admitting that is when we let the magic in and all the unknown possibilities. When we are not laser-focused on a specific outcome or expectation, we live much more freely and basically allow amazing experiences to cross our paths. That's what this year has felt like for me. I came into it with the intention to love myself more and watch what happens next. I've seen personal breakthroughs in my thoughts, and I've watched dreams come true that were 10-20 years in the making!
Friends, keep moving forward, learning and growing, and realizing that self-care and self-love is much more important than wasting our energy trying to figure out why things "haven’t gone our way." It’s so easy to forget that things happen for a reason and are actually working in our favor. We just have to believe it!
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