20
Oct 14
BOYZONE – “You Needed Me”
There’s no “Goodbye” or “Never Forget” for Boyzone, no bravura statement of a legacy: that legacy, after all, was happily preparing its second single. Ronan and the lads’ final release missed the top, but as a valediction, this will do. It’s a cover of a string-soaked number by Anne Murray, a country-esque hit (Grammy-awarded, no less) from the 70s heyday of Tammy or Dolly. In either incarnation, it’s something of a slog – a pretty, wistful melody laden down by a glutinous arrangement and a lyric that peters out. Under Boyzone’s care it’s basically a Ronan spotlight number – so whether intentionally or not it feels like priming the audience for the imminent solo career.
But Ronan takes “You Needed Me” to different places from Murray, which makes this an unusual Boyzone single and a better goodbye than they deserve – for once a cover version they’ve put their own, perhaps stronger, mark on. Where Murray’s cool, unwavering vocal takes her lover’s devotion as a source of surprise and quiet strength, Keating sings the song in a wounded growl, making you notice what Murray doesn’t stress – the title is in the past tense. Someone needed Boyzone once, and they do no longer. The fans? That’s an obvious answer – “You Needed Me” as Boyzone’s version of The Smiths’ “Rubber Ring”: don’t forget the songs that made you cry, and the songs that saved your life…
There’s something else happening, though. If you mixed Anne Murray’s sweetly patient singing and Ronan’s bereft take on “You Needed Me”, you might get somewhere near another 1999 ballad, Sarah McLachlan’s Toy Story 2 soundtrack hit, “When She Loved Me”. “You Needed Me” isn’t nearly as brutal as that, of course, but it frames Boyzone’s song in a different way, as sung not to the fans but to Louis: the lament of discarded toys, sinking to the bottom of the box, remembering happier times before they were replaced.
3
Pretty feeble track. Good write-up considering (although I’d recommend adding a footnote or a parenthesis identifying ‘Louis’ for non-UK folk). Never mind, Shania’s gonna Rock This Country.
#30 I remember seeing “Look At Me” played exactly once on VH-1. At the time my reaction was, is she trying to be a self-parody? Suffice it to say, that was the last we heard of Ms. Halliwell in the US. Whether or not that was good thing will be determined by bunnies as yet unheard by me….
High times for Anne Murray in 1999 then since she’s also pinged in South Park’s Blame Canada.
I went to school with Anne Murray!
OK, it wasn’t *that* Anne Murray, but someone else with the same name. This fact is more interesting than the record, which is a dull plod which just can’t be bothered and is simultaneously too long. THREE.
Frankly it borders on the offensive that this and Geri conspired to keep ROCK CLASSIC “That Don’t Impress Me Much” at a paltry #3 – sparky, funny, exquisitely timed and with a great drop. And strictly evaluated this and Geri were the wrong way around as well, given that this is utterly dire. I think its complete lack of imagination/verve/life/dignity is meant to be comforting, although it vaguely makes me want to throw up. [2]
I heard “That Don’t Impress Me Much” and “Man! I Feel Like A Woman” for the first time in years the other day and while, yes, rather either than this, they sounded a lot more flatfooted and slow than I remembered.
That Don’t Impress Me Much dumps on this and Look At Me (the title of that one, surely, had to be a little self-parodic). It seemed to get a lot more airplay, too. I suspect a little music industry foul play – it certainly felt like a major catastrophe for Geri that she stalled at no.2.
Shania, meanwhile, had to deliver a rather curious line that killed her song’s narrative momentum: “Okay, so you’re a rocket scientist” (really quite impressive); “Okay, so you’re Brad Pitt” (also rather impressive, certainly in 1999); “Okay, so you’ve got a car”. A car? Well, that wouldn’t impress me too much either.
Re 37: Really? That’s a shame. I always imagine the title of Man! I Feel Like A Woman as a Rainer Wolfcastle line in The Simpsons, though I don’t think it is.
You’re Still The One is, for me, one of the best constructed pop songs of the 90s, or any era. Every line a killer hook.
#36 – that’s why it’s a ROCK CLASSIC rather than a UK HARD HOUSE CLASSIC ;)
#35 et al – I will never, ever forgive the Come On Over album for denying James’ Millionaires the album top spot. Almost as gross an injustice as Chesney Fucking Hawkes…
#36 etc The single versions of both those tracks were a bit of a let-down compared with the original album version, if my memory serves me right – the mix tried to make them poppy, but just sucked a bit of the life out of em. I really enjoyed “Come On Over” as an album – lots of tracks, and a fair proportion were fine, gutsy things. But Trisha Yearwood was surely the queen of 90s country. What a pity she will not even come close to troubling us here.
My wife heard the line in the Shania song as “I can’t believe you kiss your c**k at night”, rather than “…car goodnight”.
Impressive defence (comparatively speaking) of this terrible song, the second of four 1s I’ll bestow upon 1999.
Two notable things about the Shania song: (i) the great misheard lyric “I can’t believe you kiss your cock at night”; and (ii) the album was number one when I became a dad.
Duro, we posted the same thing simultaneously there…
Gotta love the staggeringly high exclamation mark density on the tracklisting for Come On Over. Anyway, time to stop stepping on Punctum’s territory and talk about Boyzone.
Er…
@41,42. That mishearing’s hilarious. Peak album watch: Come On Over ~ 40 million sold, Backstreet Boys’ Millennium ~ 30 million, Britney’s debut ~ 30 million. Ker-razy numbers from a contemporary perspective.
#37 it was missing the last verse
“Ok, so you’re Mutt Lange.. What.. *The* Mutt Lange?”
Shania reached peak exclamation mark with the ‘Up!’ album tracklisting:
1. Up!
2. I’m Gonna Getcha Good!
3. She’s Not Just a Pretty Face
4. Juanita
5. Forever & For Always
6. Ain’t No Particular Way
7. It Only Hurts When I’m Breathing
8. Nah!
9. (Wanna Get To Know You) That Good!
10. C’est la vie
11. I’m Jealous
12. Ka-Ching!
13. Thank You Baby! (For Making Someday Come So Soon)
14. Waiter! Bring Me Water!
15. What a Way to Wanna Be!
16. I Ain’t Goin’ Down
17. I’m Not In The Mood (To Say No)!
18. In My Car (I’ll Be The Driver)
19. When You Kiss Me
God love her.
Re 41/42: hence her reaction “you must be joking, right?”
I dunno Tom, I just gave TDIMM a listen and it still sounds pretty watertight, built for airplay, and (something I didn’t really notice at the time) streets ahead of the 1999 UK productions we’ve encountered so far.
I quite like ‘Look At Me’ and its Propellerheads-y daytime TV makeover show aesthetic. Possibly because it falls in the the ‘achievable goals’ category for karaoke. [Listens back] OH GOD the hammed-up middle 8 where she’s at her own funeral.. D:
But how would anyone know if you were singing it badly or just authentically ;-)
#42- had no idea it was a ‘thing’. Now worried my wife has been passing off other hilarious mishearings as her own. Will monitor.
This 3 means that Boyzone’s six number ones have finally combined for a higher number of marks than Kate Bush’s one.
I’m looking forward to seeing if their Irish successors will “top” their combined average of precisely 2. Starting with a 4 was not a good start in that regard – they’ll need three 1s to have a chance at it, but I’m pretty sure they can pull that one off in thirteen attempts.
And the above was more interesting than the song.
@32: Plagiarism, much? :-)
Would that one could combine ten songs which score 1 and get a perfect ten. Alas, popular music does not work that way.
@54: Huh?
I think Iconoclast meant 52, not 32, the totting-up of Boyzone’s scores having been done earlier. Not that it really matters, eh?
Other songs that were around in the Top 10 and getting plenty of airplay: ‘Kiss Me’ by Sixpence None the Richer, ‘Turn Around’ by Phats & Small, ‘Every Morning’ by Sugar Ray, ‘No Scrubs’ by TLC, ‘You Get What You Give’ by New Radicals. The last of whom will be connected to Boyzone at a later date, of course. Some of those are still daytime staples now.
I see now. Looks like I created a self-referential loop at #54 anyway.
Maybe we’re all in need of some chocolate….
Tellingly, I recognised the opening frame (no pun intended) of the video instantly but failed to remember the song at all.
Oh, and Tom’s gambit about Ronan’s interpretation of the lyrics is somewhat undermined by the total lack of interest he displays throughout that clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hblHmyb-83M
I made it nearly halfway…
The dullest of all Boyzone singles Number 1 or otherwise. 2.
All of Boyzone’s six chart toppers arecurrently in the bottom 100 which is some achievement. A bit harsh on 2 (ADB, NMW) being there. No complaints about the other 4 though.YNM rightfully at the bottom of the pile.
Forgettable, dull and boring.
@33 Yep. The line in question: “For all their hockey hullabaloo / And that bitch Anne Murray too!”
Blimey, it took an effort for me to get through this one. 2/10.