I Can’t Let Go
My favorite Linda Ronstadt album is "Mad Love". If for no reason other than her killer take on Mark Goldenberg’s "Justine".
This is the one about the girl
The girl who came to stay
Before she went to Broadway, before she sang standards, Linda Ronstadt went New Wave. You remember New Wave, don’t you? The analog of punk, absent safety pins through the face but still much simpler than corporate rock? New Wave was about energy, and in many cases quality songwriting, and at this late date one can see Ms. Ronstadt’s take on it as its death knell. Still…
The highlight of the album was the three then unknown Goldenberg songs, "Justine", "Mad Love" and "Cost Of Love". But there were three great Elvis Costello covers too: "Girls Talk" and "Talking In The Dark" and "Party Girl". The obligatory slow burning soul cover for radio insurance, "Hurt So Bad", was superfluous, it added nothing to the Little Anthony original, but there was a strangely insightful cover of Neil Young’s "Look Out For My Love", which is every bit as good as Mr. Young’s version.
That’s not all, Linda gave Billy Steinberg his start with "How Do I Make You".
And "Mad Love" also included "I Can’t Let Go".
If you’d asked me yesterday who did the original, I would have been stumped. The version in my brain is Linda’s. And I’ve got no complaints, it succeeds on its merits, it fires on all cylinders. But last night on Sunset Boulevard, long after dark, I heard a progenitor, which was oh-so-familiar, yet different.
I had to look at the readout, to make sure I was on the right satellite station. This was another New Wave cover, right? This wasn’t a sixties song.
But it was. It truly belonged on the Sixties on Six.
And I’ve about given up listening to the station, hearing the same damn songs over and over again, I mean how many times can I hear the Four Seasons’ "Let’s Hang On" (and I like the Four Seasons!), but last night I discovered pure joy, the Hollies’ version of "I Can’t Let Go".
Now the Wikipedia tells me there was even an earlier take. By one Evie Sands. Whose name I know, but couldn’t pick out of a lineup. And even though her version percolated in the New York market, I was unexposed. Just as I was to the breakthrough Hollies recording.
Breakthrough? It didn’t even make the Top Forty. It bubbled just below at number 42. Reaching that peak position in May of ’66. Then again, how high could it fly being released on Imperial?
So, I’m driving alone on the highway, positively elated. There’s that simple sixties intro that began so many New Wave songs. And the retro jangly guitar. A sweet voice that seemed to be required for AM success holds dominion over the track
And there was the original circular chorus, that causes you to nod your head and ultimately look to the sky and cry "I can’t let go!"
That’s what I love about the modern era, everything old is new again. Just like teenagers discover Led Zeppelin, I can be exposed to something that’s been right in front of me forever, that I somehow missed!
And through the magic of the Internet, I can now listen to the true original:
It’s the same song, but it’s got that sixties girl group feel with a surf guitar, but hang in there, as the song unfolds you get snared. And yes, it’s still got that incredible hook in the chorus.
If only Lee DeWyze had looked back a bit further, instead of recording the U2 track, which lacks melody, is a record as opposed to a song, he’d recorded this Chip Taylor/Al Gorgoni opus Yup, that Chip Taylor, the one who wrote "Wild Thing" (the brother of Jon Voight!)
