The Song "You Don't Own Me" Sung by The Blow Monkeys

Johnny Castle has become angry because Baby Houseman will not tell her father that Johnny is her boyfriend. Later, Baby runs to Penny Johnson's cabin and finds Johnny there. Baby and Johnny goes out onto the porch, where she silently caresses his back and shoulders.

Then Robbie walks by and remarks that Baby is slumming with Johnny. Then Johnny beats up Robbie.

While all that is happening, the soundtrack plays the song "You Don't Own Me" sung by The Blow Monkeys.

The song is barely audible for the movie audience. The person who made the above videoclip is specially playing the song much louder on some audio device.

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The song You Don't Own Me, which was a big hit in the year 1963, when the movie's story takes place. This 1963 hit was sung by 17-year-old Leslie Gore.

Here are the lyrics:

You don't own me.
I'm not just one of your many toys.
You don't own me.
Don't say I can't go with other boys.

And don't tell me what to do.
Don't tell me what to say.
And please, when I go out with you,
Don't put me on display.

You don't own me.
Don't try to change me in any way.
You don't own me.
Don't tie me down, because I'd never stay.

I don't tell you what to say.
I don't tell you what to do.
So just let me be myself --
That's all I ask of you.

I'm young, and I love to be young.
I'm free, and I love to be free --
To live my life the way I want,
To say and do whatever I please.

In the finished movie, however, the song is performed by an all-male British band, The Blow Monkeys. The performance was included in their album released in 1987, which was the same year when the movie was released. The singer was 26-year-old Robert Howard (born in 1961).

The Blow Monkeys, who in 1987 sang for the 1963 movie "Dirty Dancing"
Don''t say I can't go out with other boys. 

In the 1987 performance, Robert Howard sings: Don't say I can't go out with other boys.

Because the song is played so quietly in the movie's soundtrack, most of the audience does not recognize or even notice it and cannot understand any of the lyrics.

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The movie scene shows Johnny and Robbie fighting. However:

* Johnny has not told Baby she can't go out with other boys.

* Robbie has not told Baby she can't go out with other boys.

* Baby has not told either Johnny or Robbie that she wants to go out with other boys.

Baby's father, however, has prohibited Baby from going out with Johnny. Because Baby has not objected to that prohibition, Johnny is mad at Baby. She has not protested to her father that he (her father) does not own her. Those are the circumstances of this scene.

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The fight was added by Patrick Swayze, who wrote in his autobiography Time of My Life (page 136):

Some of what Lisa [Mrs. Swayze] and I suggested made it into the film ... We inserted the fight scene between Johnny and the cad waiter, Robbie, to give Johnny the rougher edge his character needed. We wrote it so Johnny would stop before knocking the guy out, though, since he’d be wary of getting fired — something that had no doubt happened to him before.

If the fight had not been added to the scene, then how would the scene have ended? Perhaps Baby, while caressing Johnny's back and shoulders, would have said, I promise I will tell my father that I am going out with you.

If the scene had ended thus, then the song "You Don't Own Me" on the soundtrack there would make sense as foreshadowing Baby's imminent confrontation with her father.

Perhaps Baby did say so in the original script, but Swayze removed that statement when he re-wrote that scene. Swayze wanted the scene to show Johnny's wrath, and so Johnny should remain angry at Baby's refusal to tell her father about him.

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I speculate that Bergstein and the producers intended for the soundtrack to play Leslie Gore singing the song. However, because of a later decision to buy the rights for the song Love Is Strange, the producers no longer could afford to buy the rights to Leslie Gore's recording. Bergstein has told this story about the filming of the song.

Love is Strange. The script says "Baby is teaching Johnny to dance." Kenny [Ortega] and I worked out the routine in my motel room the night before. The executives came running onto the set after it was shot -- the song was not listed on the carefully calibrated chart of songs we could afford. There was no budget for it -- and worst of all -- we'd had the actors "lip synch," meaning we couldn't replace it with a cheaper song and might have to scrap the whole scene. Luckily everyone agreed after they saw it the scene was to good to scrap. You do what you have to do.

What the producers had to do, apparently, was to buy just the lyric rights to the song "You Don't Owe Me" (written by John Madara and David White, not by Leslie Gore) and then pay a low-cost band to sing the lyrics. (See also my article Business Decisions About the Movie's Music.)

Eventually when the scene was filmed, Baby's promise to Johnny to tell her father was removed from the dialogue. Thus the song no longer made any sense in the scene, and so its volume was reduced so far down that the movie audience hears only a soft instrumental.

I suppose that The Blow Monkeys sold the song to the movie's producers for a flat payment that did not entitle them to any royalties from the soundtrack album.

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Here I will offer an alternative explanation for the inclusion of this song in the movie.

I recently published on this blog a couple of articles titled "Last week I took a girl away from Jamie the lifeguard" -- Part 1 and Part 2. There I speculated that Bergstein's story originally included a subplot that took place at the resort hotel's swimming pool. In this subplot Neil Kellerman took a girl away from a character named Jamie the lifeguard.

If Jamie objected to that girl leaving him for Neil, then the song "You Don't Own Me" would make sense in the soundtrack there.

No such subplot, however, was included in the final movie. If the producers already had purchased the song's lyric rights and also the Blow Monkey's cheap cover recording to play over that subplot, then perhaps they simply placed the song onto the fight scene as the only plausibly suitable scene in the final movie.

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The Song "This Overload" by Alfie Zappacosta

Two days before their Sheldrake Hotel performance, Baby Houseman and Johnny Castle are quarreling about their dance practices. Johnny says, "let's get out of here". They get into Johnny's car and drive to the countryside.

As they get into the car and drive, the soundtrack plays the song "This Overload", performed by Alfie Zappacosta. The song's lyrics follow:

This overload.
This overload.

I can hear your heels clicking on the sidewalk,
Beating to the rhythm of my heart.
Caught up in you --
You're the only one I want.

I follow you home every night
Just to make sure that you get there alright.
Baby, it's true,
I can't think of anything but you

And what I need, Baby,
Is a little bit of sympathy.
You got me on my knees.
I burn throughout the night.

And I can't live without your love
Won't you help me cure this overload?

Oh, you got to know;
You see me everywhere that you go.
Doesn't that say something?
Obsession's taken hold of me?

All because of you.
You've got to see me through.
I can't take another night alone without you.
Honey, it's true.

I am so hung up on you
What I really need, Baby, is a little of your company.
You got me on my knees.
I burn throughout the night ...

Alfie Zappacosta's 1986 album When I Fall in Love Again

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This song did not exist in 1963, when the story takes place. Rather, the song was recorded for the movie in 1987.

The song's lyrics do not express Johnny's thoughts as they get into the car and drive to the countryside on that day in 1963. Johnny does not feel that an obsession about Baby has taken hold of him. Johnny does not burn throughout the night because of Baby.

At this point in the story, Johnny just wants to train Baby well enough to perform at the Sheldrake Hotel, after which he intends to terminate his involvement with her.

Keep in mind, however, that Baby is narrating this story retrospectively from 1987. The song expresses her own fantasizing in 1987 that Johnny felt so passionately about her on that day in 1963.

On that day in 1963, Baby was obsessed and was burning through the night about Johnny, but he did not reciprocate those feelings yet. She merely fantasized that he too felt so passionately about her.

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The Wikipedia article about Zappacosta includes the following passages.

Alfredo Peter "Alfie" Zappacosta (born 1953 in Sora, Italy), also known by just his surname, is an Italian-born Canadian singer/songwriter.

Zappacosta's first band was Surrender, a five-piece group that recorded three albums in the late 1970s into the early 1980s. In 1984 he recorded his first self-titled solo album which contained the hit singles "Passion" and "We Should Be Lovers". As a result, he won the Juno Award for "Most Promising Male Vocalist".

The next year he lent his vocals to the Canadian charity production "Tears Are Not Enough", produced by David Foster singing the lines "Maybe we could understand the reasons why" in the fifth stanza with Dalbello.

His second album A-Z was released in 1986 and featured the hit singles "When I Fall (In Love Again)" and "Nothing Can Stand In Your Way". Following this, a Zappacosta song "Overload" was added to the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, one of the biggest selling soundtracks of the 80s.

A third album Quick! .. .Don't Ask Any Questions was released in 1990, before Zappacosta took time off to hone his vocal and guitar skills. He also pursued acting in various stage performances, as well as a role in the 2005 Canadian movie Halo. ....

In December 2008, Zappacosta released the album At the Church at Berkeley which features his versions of classic jazz standards. He has been touring Canada to support this album since the summer of 2009. In 2010 Zappacosta released his last album to date, Blame It On Me

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When Baby and Johnny are going to his car, it's raining. Johnny finds that his car keys are locked inside.. Therefore he pulls a post out of the ground and uses the post to break through a car window so that he can open the door.

As they drive through the wind, Baby exclaims twice, "You're wild!" They both laugh.

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This scene with the car serves as an interlude that separates two long scenes of dance practice. The car scene is preceded by the "Hungry Eyes" dance-practice scene and is followed by the "Hey, Baby" dance-practice scene.

Th interlude's "Overload" song is visceral and hard-drumming -- in contrast to the thoughtful, melodic songs that accompany the two dance-practice scenes.

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The Song "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" Sung by The Shirelles

Baby Houseman and Johnny Castle became sexual with each other during the night between Thursday and Friday. On Friday afternoon, Baby goes to Johnny's cabin and gets into bed with him. They talk:

Baby Houseman
Have you had many women?

Johnny Castle
What?

Baby Houseman
Have you had many women?

Johnny Castle
Baby, come on.

Baby Houseman
Tell me. I want to know.

Johnny Castle
No, no. Look, you gotta understand what it's like.

Before, you come from the streets, and suddenly you're up here, and then women are throwing themselves at you and they smell so good. They really take care of themselves. I never knew women could be like that.

They're so goddamn rich, you think they must know about everything. They're slipping their room keys in my hand two and three times a day -- different women -- so, here I think I'm scoring big, right?

You think, "They wouldn't be doing this if they didn't care about me, right?"

Baby Houseman
That's all right. I understand. You were just using them, that's all.

During this conversation, a record player is playing the song "Will You Love Me Tomorrow", sung by the Shirelles.

Tonight you're mine, completely.
You give your love so sweetly.
Tonight the light of love is in your eyes.
But will you love me tomorrow?

Is this a lasting treasure
Or just a moment's pleasure?
Can I believe the magic in your sighs?
Will you still love me tomorrow?

Tonight with words unspoken,
You say that I'm the only one,
But will my heart be broken
When the night meets the morning sun?

I'd like to know that your love
Is a love I can be sure of,
So tell me now, and I won't ask again:
Will you still love me tomorrow?

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The following video shows The Shirelles performing the song on television in the year 1964.

Below are the covers of the 1960 single record and of the 1961 album that included the song.

The single record, released in November 1960

The album released in March 1961

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The song expresses Baby's anxiety that Johnny feels differently about her today, after being sexual with her for the first time during the previous night. For example, Johnny might feel that he disdained her as:

* a slut

* visually plain or ugly

* misshapen -- e.g. unsymmetrical breasts, weird nipples, too hairy, fat thighs

* stinky

* sexually incompetent

* foolish

* boring

* disappointing.

His first sexual experience with her might have caused him to never respect or love her.

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The Wikipedia article about the song includes the following passages.

Will You Love Me Tomorrow", also known as "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow", is a song written by Gerry Goffin and Carole King. It was originally recorded in 1960 by the Shirelles, who took their single to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song is also notable for being the first song by a black all-girl group to reach number one in the United States. It has since been recorded by many artists over the years, including a 1971 version by co-writer Carole King. ...

When first presented with the song, lead singer Shirley Owens (later known as Shirley Alston-Reeves) did not want to record it, because she thought it was "too country." She relented after a string arrangement was added. ...

This version of the song ... as of 2009 was ranked as the 162nd greatest song of all time, as well as the best song of 1960, by Acclaimed Music. It was ranked at #126 among Rolling Stone's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Billboard named the song #3 on their list of 100 Greatest Girl Group Songs of All Time. ...

Bertell Dache, a black demo singer for the Brill Building songwriters, recorded [in 1961] an answer song entitled "Not just Tomorrow, But Always". ....

Here is that answer song.

The Wikipedia article about the song continues:

The Satintones, an early Motown group, also recorded [also in 1961] an answer song called "Tomorrow and Always" ...

Here is that answer song:

The Wikipedia article about the song continues:

In 1971 Carole King, the co-writer of the song, recorded a version of "Will You Love Me Tomorrow" for her landmark studio album Tapestry, with Joni Mitchell and James Taylor on background vocals. King's version of the song was taken at a considerably slower tempo and with a more contemplative, melancholy feel than in the Shirelles original recording. It gained considerable album-oriented rock airplay due to the large scale commercial success of the album. ....

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The following video shows King performing the song in about 1971.

When King recorded the song, the word still was added to the song's title "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?".

The cover of Carol King's 1971 album Tapestry

Perhaps most of the young people who watched the movie Dirty Dancing when it opened 1987 knew the song only from King's rendition.

I wrote about King in a previous article titled The Song "Some Kind of Wonderful" by the Drifters.

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The Wikipedia article about The Shirelles includes the following passages.

The Shirelles were an American girl group notable for their rhythm and blues, doo-wop and soul music and gaining popularity in the early 1960s. They consisted of schoolmates Shirley Owens (later Shirley Alston Reeves), Doris Coley (later Doris Kenner-Jackson), Addie "Micki" Harris (later Addie Harris McFadden), and Beverly Lee and were the first all female group to have Number 1 hit record with "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?".

Founded in 1957 for a talent show at their high school, they were signed by Florence Greenberg of Tiara Records. Their first single, "I Met Him on a Sunday", was released by Tiara and licensed by Decca Records in 1958. After a brief and unsuccessful period with Decca, they went with Greenberg to her newly formed company, Scepter Records. Working with Luther Dixon, the group rose to fame with "Tonight's the Night". After a successful period of collaboration with Dixon and promotion by Scepter, with seven top 20 hits, the Shirelles left Scepter in 1966. Afterwards, they were unable to maintain their previous popularity.

The Shirelles have been described as having a "naive schoolgirl sound" that contrasted with the sexual themes of many of their songs. Several of their hits used strings and baião-style music. They have been credited with launching the girl group genre, with much of their music reflecting the genre's essence.

Their acceptance by both white and black audiences, predating that of the Motown acts, has been noted as reflecting the early success of the Civil Rights Movement. ....

The following video shows The Shirelles singing "Big John" in 1961.

The Song "Kellerman's Anthem"

As the talent show ends, some of the resort's employees and guests sing "Kellerman's Anthem".

The lyrics:

Kellerman's, we come together, singing all as one.
We have shared another season's talent, play and fun.
Summer days will soon be over, soon the autumn starts,
And tonight our memories whisper softly in our hearts.

Join hands and hearts and voices --
Voices, hearts and hands.
At Kellerman's the friendships last long,
As the mountains stand

Daytime, nighttime, any hour -- whether rain or shine
Games and lectures, talks and music happily combine.

Not a stress or strain is found here, for it must be said:
Here at Kellerman's you gladened, stomach, heart and head

So lets join in just one last chorus --
Visitors, staff and guests.
What we've shared won't be forgotten,
Old friends are the best.

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"Kellerman's Anthem" is based on a song titled "Annie Lisle", which is described by Wikipedia as follows:

"Annie Lisle" is the name of an 1857 ballad by Boston songwriter H. S. Thompson .... It is about the death of a young maiden, by what some have speculated to be tuberculosis, although the lyric does not explicitly mention tuberculosis, or "consumption" as it was called then.

The song might have slipped into obscurity had the tune not been adopted by countless colleges, universities, and high schools worldwide as their respective alma mater songs.

The first college to have used the tune in a spirit song seems to have been Cornell University. In 1870, students Archibald Weeks and Wilmot Smith wrote "Far Above Cayuga's Waters" and used an adaptation of Thompson's melody.

Many other colleges and high schools, likely influenced by Cornell's version, have since created their own renditions. ... Some others include: [a list of more than 200 colleges]

Lyrics

Down where the waving willows 'neath the sunbeams smile,
Shadowed o’er the murmring waters dwelt sweet Annie Lisle --
Pure as the forest lily, never thought of guile.
Had its home within the bosom of sweet Annie Lisle.

Wave willows, murmur waters, golden sunbeams, smile!
Earthly music cannot waken lovely Annie Lisle.
Sweet came the hallowed chiming of the Sabbath bell,
Borne on the morning breezes down the woody dell.

On a bed of pain and anguish lay dear Annie Lisle,
Changed were the lovely features, gone the happy smile.

Raise me in your arms, O Mother, let me once more look
On the green and waving willows and the flowing brook.

Hark! the sound of angel music from the choirs above!
Dearest mother, I am going. Surely, God is love."

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As noted above, the song first was adapted as an anthem by Cornell University. The following video shows the Cornell Chorus and Glee Club singing their university anthem. The lyrics are in the subtitles.

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The below video shows the lyrics of "Kellerman's Anthem" on a montage of the movie's moments.

The Song "Yes" Sung by Merry Clayton

On the night before the talent show, Lisa Houseman is walking to Robbie Gould's cabin in order to have sex with him for the first time. The soundtrack plays Merry Clayton's song "Yes".

The soundtrack begins with the Yes! on the song's second stanza:

Driving around,
I just can't hear a sound,
Except my own wheels turning.
Wasting the day --
I'm just running away
From a heart that's a burning,
But I can't run forever.

Yes! We're gonna fall in love,
And it feels so right.
Yes, we're gonna make love.
It's gonna be tonight.

I can just imagine
Hugging and teasing
And loving and squeezing
All night.

I've made up my mind --
This is gonna be mine.
I'm so glad I waited.

Why did I try
To figure out why?
Everything can't be anticipated

I can't wait to tell him.

Oh, yes!

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The lyrics tell the thoughts of a woman who has been reluctant to begin having sex with her boyfriend. All day she has been driving around and thinking about her reluctance. Suddenly she decides that -- Yes! -- she will have sex with him, for the first time, tonight. Her thoughtful reluctance has been overwhelmed by her emotional eagerness.

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The song was written by Neal Cavanaugh, Tom Graf and Terry Fryer. I did not find an article about how the song was written. The song was not heard by the public before the movie Dirty Dancing.

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The Wikipedia article about Merry Clayton includes the following passages.

.... Clayton was born in ... Louisiana. Clayton was born on Christmas Day [1948] and earned her name due to the holiday. She is the Daughter of Eva B. Clayton and Reverend A.G. Williams Sr. Clayton was raised in New Orleans as a Christian, and spent much of her time in her father’s parish, New Zion Baptist Church. After moving to Los Angeles, she joined the now famous singer group “The Blossoms.”

Clayton began her recording career in 1962 at the age of 14, singing Who Can I Count On? as a duet with Bobby Darin ... In 1963 she recorded the first version of The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss), the same year that Betty Everett's version reached the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Early in her career Merry performed with Ray Charles (as one of the Raelettes), who was the only artist her father allowed her to see live. Others include Pearl Bailey, Phil Ochs, Burt Bacharach, Tom Jones, Joe Cocker, Linda Ronstadt, Carole King, and on several tracks from Neil Young's debut album. Clayton is often credited as having recorded with Elvis Presley ....

Clayton is best known for her 1969 duet with Mick Jagger on the Rolling Stones song Gimme Shelter, though on some releases her name is misspelled as "Mary." According to Jagger, this collaboration came about due to partially to chance. Jagger states that they thought “it’d be great to have a woman come do the…chorus.” They called Clayton “randomly” in the middle of the night, and she showed up to the studio “in curlers” and did the verse in a few takes, which Jagger remarks is “pretty amazing.” ...

In 1970, Clayton recorded her own version of "Gimme Shelter," and it became the title track of her debut solo album and peaked at #73, released that year. Her version would be the first of five singles under her name to crack the Billboard Hot 100.

That same year she performed a live version of Lift Every Voice and Sing for the soundtrack for Robert Altman film Brewster McCloud and also contributed vocals to Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's film Performance. In 1971 she co-wrote the song Sho' Nuff about her mother.

She starred as the original Acid Queen in the first London production of The Who's Tommy in 1972. In 1973, she featured prominently on Ringo Starr's Oh My My ...

In the mid 1970s ... continued to release solo albums throughout the next decade ...

Her soundtrack work continued into the 1980s, including "You're Always There When I Need You", the title track for the 1980 Get Smart film The Nude Bomb, and the song "Yes" from Dirty Dancing, which hit #45 on the Hot 100.

In 1987, Clayton co-starred with Ally Sheedy in the film Maid to Order and played Verna Dee Jordan in the final season of Cagney and Lacey.

In 1989, she recorded a cover of "Almost Paradise" with Eric Carmen. ....

She was featured in the documentary film 20 Feet from Stardom (2013), which ... won the Oscar for best documentary at the 86th Academy Awards [and] ... the 2015 Grammy Award for Best Music Film ...

Clayton was married to jazz artist Curtis Amy from 1970 until his death in 2002.[13] Clayton's brother is the Little Feat percussionist Sam Clayton.

The website Hollywood Bowl has published an article with more details about her life.

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The following video shows Clayton singing "Yes" on television in 1988.

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The following video shows Clayton performing the song "Almost Paradise" with Eric Carmen (famous as the singer of "Hungry Eyes").

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The following video shows the trailer for the documentary movie 20 Feet From Stardom.

The Song "She's Like the Wind" by Patrick Swayze

Johnny Castle has lost his job at Kellman's Mountain House. He says goodbye to Baby Houseman and drives away. Baby is sad. As she is dressing in her hotel bedroom for the talent show, she is comforted by her sister Lisa.

The audience hears the song "She's Like the Wind".

She's like the wind through my tree,
She rides the night next to me.
She leads me through moonlight,
Only to burn me with the sun.

She's taken my heart,
But she doesn't know
What she's done.

Feel her breath on my face,
Her body close to me.

Can't look in her eyes --
She's out of my league.
Just a fool to believe
I have anything she needs

She's like the wind.
I look in the mirror, and all I see
Is a young old man with only a dream.

Am I just fooling myself,
That she'll stop the pain?
Living without her,
I'd go insane.

In the last part of the scene when Baby is being sad, she too seems to hear the song.

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The song's concept is that Johnny feels he is not good enough for Baby.

The best place to begin interpreting the song is the second-to-last stanza.

She's like the wind.
I look in the mirror, and all I see
Is a young old man with only a dream.

When Johnny looks in a mirror, he sees only himself -- without Baby standing next to him. Baby is not seen, because she is like the wind -- she is air that has blown away.

As Johnny continues to look in the mirror, he sees that he "is a young old man with only a dream". In other words, although Johnny still is rather young, he foresees that when he will be an old man, he will have only dreams -- no accomplishments -- in his life.

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From that stanza, let's now go back to the preceding stanza.

Can't look in her eyes --
She's out of my league.
Just a fool to believe
I have anything she needs

Since Johnny never will accomplish any of his dreams, he is not worthy of Baby. He is ashamed to look her in the eyes. Baby is only in a minor league, whereas Baby is in a major league. Johnny does not have anything that Baby needs.

So, those two stanzas in the song's second half express Johnny's despair that his not worthy of Baby and that she therefore has blown away from his presence.

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The second and third stanzas express a different thought.

She's taken my heart,
But she doesn't know
What she's done.

Feel her breath on my face,
Her body close to me.

To review, Johnny looks in the mirror and sees that Baby is not standing next to him, because she is like air that has blown away.

Johnny realizes that when Baby blew away, she unknowingly took away his heart.

Now Johnny is in two places. Most of his body is standing in front of a mirror. However, some of his body -- especially his heart -- is riding through the air along with Baby, who is like the wind. Johnny's riding-with-Baby heart senses Baby's breath and proximity.

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The first stanza elaborates the idea that Johnny's heart is riding away through the air with Baby, who is like the wind.

She's like the wind through my tree,
She rides the night next to me.
She leads me through moonlight,
Only to burn me with the sun.

So, while most of Johnny's body is standing in front of a mirror, his heart is riding through the air with Baby. This situation will end badly for Johnny's heart, because she will rise high in status during her life. When Baby eventually flies too high, too close to the sun, Johnny's heart will be burned by the sun's heat.

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Now the last stanza.

Am I just fooling myself,
That she'll stop the pain?
Living without her,
I'd go insane.

Johnny feels pain, because his heart has blown away with Baby. He hopes that she will return with his heart and heal that pain, but he is just fooling himself.

Johnny feels that this situation will make him go insane.

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The song's sensible order would be as follows:

She's like the wind.
I look in the mirror, and all I see
Is a young old man with only a dream.

Can't look in her eyes --
She's out of my league.
Just a fool to believe
I have anything she needs

She's taken my heart,
But she doesn't know
What she's done.

Feel her breath on my face,
Her body close to me.

She's like the wind through my tree,
She rides the night next to me.
She leads me through moonlight,
Only to burn me with the sun.

Am I just fooling myself,
That she'll stop the pain?
Living without her,
I'd go insane.

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The song was written by Patrick Swayze, who is a quite good musician. The main voice in the song is his.

 The movie's producers needed him to play the Johnny role for the movie to succeed, but they were not able to pay him the money that he was worth. Therefore, the producers sweetened their monetary offer with a concession to include one of his songs in the movie's soundtrack. If the movie succeeded, then he might earn considerable royalties from his song. Even if the movie failed, he would get the artistic credit for writing a soundtrack song.

I speculate that the song originated as a song about himself and his wife Lisa riding horses. The Swayze couple loved horses, and much of their book tells about their horses. On the book's cover, Lisa is sitting on a horse.

Patrick and Lisa and a horse

Because (I speculate) the song originally was about riding horses, the song's first stanza is based on a metaphor that riding horses is like riding the wind. However, Swayze rewrote the following stanzas to fit the movie's story.

Before he rewrote the song, however, he rewrote the script to make Johnny unworthy of Baby. The script changes had to be approved before the song's lyrics were finalized.

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Swayze had tried to peddle an earlier version of the song to the producers of a movie called Grandview USA, which was made a couple of years before Dirty Dancing. That earlier version had essentially the same first stanza.

The song's co-writer Stacy Widelitz tells about the song's origin for an article published on the Tennessean website.

Swayze and I became friends in his acting class and discovered that we lived right around the block from each other. So we became fast friends and started hanging out together. He was a very musical guy, and we had talks about music.

[In about 1984] he was doing a movie called Grandview, U.S.A. with Jamie Lee Curtis and C. Thomas Howell. He called me up because he knew I was writing music for TV at the time. He said, "I have this idea for a song. I've been kicking it around for a while, and I can't get anywhere with it, and they're looking for songs for Grandview. Do you want to work on it with me?" I said, "Yeah, sure. Come on over."

So he came over with his guitar, and I was at the piano at my apartment. He started playing the same chords over and over: C to E-minor, C to E-minor, and he had these opening lines that I liked, which were: "She's like the wind through my tree/ She rides the night next to me." I found (that) intriguing. Then the third and fourth lines I didn't like. He said, "Well, what do you hear?" And I just blurted out, "She leads me through moonlight / only to burn me with the sun." He said, "What does that mean?" I said, "I don't care. Let's just write it down and move on from here."

I said, "It's got to go somewhere musically," so we worked out some different chord changes, and over the course of two or three days we hashed out the song ... anyway, ultimately it was not used in Grandview, U.S.A. ...

And then Patrick called me from North Carolina, where they were shooting the film in 1986, and said "I played the demo of 'She's Like the Wind' for the producers of Dirty Dancing, and they really like it, and they want to use it.'

... The word on the street was this was a very low-budget movie that was going to go straight to video after one week in the theater. They also had very little money to pay for (the song's usage), so my music agent made the deal for Patrick and I, and as a result, we retained 100 percent of the publishing. We've always owned the copyright, which has turned out to be a blessing. ...

If the Grandview U.S.A. producers had bought the song rights from Swayze and Widelitz and put it into that movie, then the song would have remained completely unknown. However, the Dirty Dancing producers would have bought some other song from Swayze. The person who was supremely lucky by the failure of Grandview U.S.A. to buy the song was Widelitz. He earned a fortune because the song was still available in 1986 to be included in the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.

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Whenever I have seen the below video, I have wondered whether the song was supposed to accompany an eliminated scene where Baby and Johnny were practicing for the talent show.

However, it might be that the song was added later to the video and that this rehearsal was accompanied by other music or by no music at all.

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YouTube used to have a superb video of Swayze singing the song live, but it has been removed.

The following video, of lower quality, shows him performing the song in Norway in 1987, the year when the movie was released.

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Swayze must have earned much more money from this song's royalties than he earned for acting the Johnny Castle role.

Because the song does not make clear sense outside of the movie Dirty Dancing, it has not been covered much by other singers.

Below is a superb performance by Patrick Nuo, who is a better singer than Swayze.

By the way, Nuo grew up speaking German in Switzerland. Singing this song, though, his American accent is perfect.

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I like this Smule duet. (I don't know the singers' names)

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The following video illustrates the song with beautiful women.

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The website Song Facts has an informative article about the song.

The Song "Stay" by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs

After Baby Houseman gets $250 from her father, she brings it to the employees' bunkhouse and gives it to Penny Johnson. When she enters the bunkhouse, the employers are dancing to a recording of the song "Stay" performed by Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs.

The song is slow, and the lyrics are simple.

Stay, just a little bit longer.
Please, please, please, please, please,
Tell me you're going to.

Now, your daddy don't mind,
And your mommy don't mind,
If we have another dance,
Just one more,
One more time.

Oh, won't you stay
Just a little bit longer?
Please let me hear
You say that you will.

Won't you press your sweet lips
To mine?
Won't you say you love me
All of the time?

Come on, come on,
Come on and stay!

Because the song is slow, the audience watches leisurely as Baby wanders among the dancers while looking for Penny.

The song's remark that your daddy won't mind resonates with Johnny's remark about the money's source.

It takes a real saint to ask Daddy.

The money is refused, so Baby might have walked away with it. However, Baby stays and persists, and gradually a decision is made that Penny will take the money and Baby will replace Penny as a dancer for the Sheldrake performance.

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The Wikipedia article about the song Stay includes the following passages:

"Stay" is a doo-wop song written by Maurice Williams and first recorded in 1960 by Williams with his group the Zodiacs. Commercially successful recordings were later also issued by both the Hollies and the Four Seasons.

The song was written by Williams in 1953 when he was 15 years old. He had been trying to convince his date not to go home at 10 o'clock as she was supposed to. He lost the argument, but as he was to relate years later, "Like a flood, the words just came to me."

In 1960, the song was put on a demo by Williams and his band, the Zodiacs. ... The band's producers took it along with some other demos to New York City and played them for all the major record producers that they could access. Finally, Al Silver of Herald Records became interested, but insisted that the song be re-recorded as the demo's recording levels were too low.

They also said that one line, "Let's have another smoke" would have to be removed in order for the song to be played on commercial radio.

After the group recorded the tune again, it was released by Herald Records. ... It entered the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 on October 9, 1960, and reached the number one spot on November 21, 1960. ... On the Herald recording, Williams sang lead and Henry Gaston sang the falsetto counter-verse.

The original recording of "Stay" remains the shortest single ever to reach the top of the American record charts, at 1 minute 36 seconds in length. By 1990, it had sold more than 8 million copies. It received a new lease of popularity after being featured on the Dirty Dancing soundtrack.

The Wikipedia article about Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs includes the following passages:

Maurice Williams was born 26 April 1938 in Lancaster, South Carolina. His first experience with music was in the church, where his mother and sister both performed. By the time he was six, Williams was performing regularly there. With his childhood friend Earl Gainey, Williams formed the gospel group the Junior Harmonizers. ...

In the winter of 1956, while still in high school, Williams and his band traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, to record for the Excello label. ...

The song "Little Darlin'" was a #11 hit on the Rhythm and Blues chart in 1957, but did not break the Billboard Hot 100's Top 40. However, when it was covered by the Canadian group the Diamonds, it moved up to #2.

Williams finished high school and while on the road with the band, their station wagon broke down in Bluefield, West Virginia. The band came across a British-built Ford car known as the Zodiac (a 'luxury' version of the Ford Zephyr built in Britain, Australia and New Zealand) and changed their name. ...

In the early summer of 1959, the band recorded in a Quonset Hut on Shakespeare Road in Columbia. The recording engineer, Homer Fesperman, recorded several tracks that the band had hoped would fetch them a hit. One of the last tracks that they recorded that day was "Stay", a song that Williams had written a couple of weeks before. Williams sang lead and Henry Gaston sang the counter-verse falsetto.

After taking the demo of "Stay" to Al Silver at Herald Records in New York City, the song was pressed and released in early 1960. ....

At the end of 1963, the British band the Hollies covered "Stay", which gave the group their debut Top Ten hit single in the UK, peaking at No.8 in January 1964, three years after the Zodiacs' version had peaked at No.14 on the U.K. charts (January 1961). Later versions of "Stay", by the Four Seasons (1964) and Jackson Browne (1978), reached the Top 20 in the U.S., each selling over one million copies in the United States alone.

The inclusion of the Zodiacs' "Stay" on the soundtrack to the film Dirty Dancing in 1987 led to the song selling more records than it had during its original release.

A 1965 recording by the group, "May I", released by Vee Jay Records and Dee-Su Records, became, over the years, another million-selling record.

Williams continued recording, touring, and releasing music through the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. He is still active in the music industry, residing in Charlotte, North Carolina. He was inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 2010. He also made several performances for the PBS "Doo Wop 50" show series in 2001.

The following video shows Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs performing the song on the Village Square television show in the early 1960s.

In the following video, Williams tells about how he wrote the song.

If you can't play the video here, go there.

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Jackson Browne made the song a big hit again in his 1977 album Running on Empty. That is my own strongest memory of the song. My family had that album, and we played it often.

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The song was featured in the 1989 movie Shag.

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In the following video the Dirty Dancing Team performs the song at the Park View Restaurant in Rotherham, England.

The Song "Some Kind of Wonderful" by the Drifters

As Johnny Castle and Baby Houseman are driving from the Sheldrake Hotel back to Kellerman's Mountain Home, the car radio announces:

I want you to look at the sky. Look at those stars. What a show!

Here are The Drifters.

In the radio announcer's mind, it is the stars that cause him to exclaim, "what a show!"

In Baby's mind, though, her memory of her recent dance performance with Johnny at the Sheldrake causes her to think, "what a show!"

On the car radio, the Drifters' song "Some Kind of Wonderful" plays as Johnny continues to drive and as Baby changes her clothes in the car's back seat.

(I do not have a video clip of that scene.)

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!

All you have to do is touch my hand,
To show me you understand,
And something happens to me
That's some kind of wonderful.

Any time my little world is blue,
I just have to look at you,
And every thing seems to be
Some kind of wonderful.

I know I can't express
This feeling of tenderness.
There's so much I wanna say
But the right words just don't come my way

I just know when I'm in your embrace,
This world is a happy place.
And something happens to me
That's some kind of wonderful.

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Baby climbs over front seat's back and sits in the passenger seat. As they sit next to each other, both remain silent. Their lengthy silence matches, in Baby's mind, one stanza of the song playing on the radio.

I know I can't express
This feeling of tenderness.
There's so much I wanna say,
But the right words just don't come my way.

When the car reaches its destination, Johnny and Baby get out of the car and stand facing each other. They briefly hold each others' hands. The touching of hands matches, in Baby's mind, another stanza.

All you have to do is touch my hand,
To show me you understand,
And something happens to me
That's some kind of wonderful.

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The song Some Kind of Wonderful, performed by the Drifters, had been released as a record in 1961 -- two years before the Dirty Dancing story is taking place. The record reached #32 on the US Billboard pop chart and #6 on the US Billboard Rhythm and Blues chart.

The song had been composed by the husband-and-wife team of Gerry Goffin and Carol King. He had been born in 1939, and she had been born in 1942, and they had married in 1959, when he had been 20 and she had been 17 years old. In their musical collaboration, he generally wrote the lyrics and she wrote the music.

Their first big collaborative hit was the song "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?", which was recorded by the Shirelles and released in 1960. In the following decade, Goffin and King collaborated to compose more than two dozen hits, including "Some Kind of Wonderful" in 1961.

The following video is based on the Broadway musical about King's life.

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Of all the songs in Dirty Dancing, the lyrics of "Some Kind of Wonderful" are the only that have all the following qualities:

* a simple and clear meaning,

* correct grammar and syntax,

* a coherent train of thought from beginning to end,

* easily understandable words and sentences,

* a romantic sentiment,

* an absence of vulgarity.

However, the music and lyrics of "Some Kind of Wonderful" can barely be heard, because they are played on the car's radio at a low volume. The only word that can be heard clearly is in the refrain -- wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

I assume that all the lyrics were supposed to be heard, because the lengthy silence and the touching of hands matched the lyrics, as I pointed out above. However, the main reason why the song was included in the movie was so that the movie audience would hear that one word wonderful.

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In the movie's dialogue, the word wonderful is said three times.

1) Near the movie's beginning: On a day following the performance of Penny Johnson and Johnny Castle in the ballroom, Penny is helping guests, including Baby, try on wigs on an outside yard. Baby remarks to Penny:

So you were really a Rockette? I think you're a wonderful dancer. ... I envy you.

2) In the movie's middle: Baby goes to visit Penny, who is recuperating in her cabin. Penny is dressed in a bathrobe and lying on her bed. As Baby enters through the cabin's front door, Penny remarks:

You just missed your father. He's such a wonderful man.

3) In the movie's ending: Baby and Johnny have finished their performance at the talent show and then have danced in the crowd for a while. Now Baby and Johnny are walking out of the room, when her father, Jake Houseman, stops them, looks at Baby, and says:

You looked wonderful out there.

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This is a circle of wonderful compliments. Baby complimented Penny, who complimented Jake, who complimented Baby.

The third compliment -- when Jake calls Baby wonderful -- is extremely important. He then embraces his daughter, and he struggles not to cry. This is the denouement moment that causes all the dopey girls in the movie audience to burst into tears. This third wonderful moment is the emotional summit of the movie's happy ending.

This third and most important wonderful moment had been foreshadowed by the previous two wonderful moments.

1) Baby had envied Penny's being a wonderful dancer -- and then Baby herself became a wonderful dancer.

2) Penny had praised Jake for being a wonderful man -- and then Baby reconciled with this wonderful man, her own wonderful father.

The song on the radio also foreshadowed the third wonderful moment. When the song began playing on the car radio, Baby was sitting in the car's back seat and was apologizing to Johnny for her failure to accomplish the lift move during their performance at the Sheldrake Hotel. As she is apologizing, however, the Drifters are prophesying some future kind of wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

Baby will accomplish the lift move at the talent show, and then her father will exclaim to her, "You looked wonderful out there!"

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The Drifters was not a coherent singing group. It was basically just a brand name that was owned by a music producer named George Treadwell. He moved singers in and out the group frequently. Although the group comprised only five singers at a time, at least 60 singers have belonged to the group since it was founded it in 1950.

During the years 1958-1960, the group's lead singer was Ben E. King. During those years he recorded 13 songs, one of which was the song "Some Kind of Wonderful" in 1960. Other of King's "Drifters" recordings were much bigger hits -- such as "This Magic Moment" and "Save the Last Dance for Me".

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King quit The Drifters already in May 1960 and began a solo career. In the below video, he sings  one of his first solo hits, "Stand By Me", on a 1961 television program.

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During King's long recording career, which lasted from 1959 to 1986 - his songs included 12 Top-10 hits and 26 Top-40 hits.

King's 1960 song "Some Kind of Wonderful" would have sunk into oblivion long ago if it had not been included  -- because of its important word wonderful -- in the Dirty Dancing movie and soundtrack album.

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The expression some kind of itself can mean something like wonderful. I explain as follows.

The adjective some usually modifies a plural noun. The items within the plurality might or might not be varied. Consider the following sentence.

There are some cars in the parking lot.

The cars might all be similar to each other or might be varied. None of the cars necessarily is unusual or remarkable.

When the adjective some modifies a singular noun, however, then the item necessarily is unusual or remarkable.

That is some car in the parking lot.

This car is so unusual and remarkable that its sight causes a sense of wonder in the viewer. A person looking at this car wonders about it.

This usage of the word some can be amplified by extending the expression to some kind of.

That is some kind of car in the parking lot.

The kind itself of the car is unusual and remarkable. The person wonders not merely about the car itself. Rather, he wonders about the very kind of car.

Such thoughts are amplified further by the expression some kind of wonderful.

I just know when I'm in your embrace,
This world is a happy place.
And something happens to me
That's some kind of wonderful.

The expression some kind of wonderful means something like wonderfully wonderful.

The Song "Cry to Me", Sung by Solomon Burke

The song "Cry to Me" is sung late in the scene where Baby Houseman comes to Johnny Castle's cabin. When she arrives, Johnny is alone and playing Otis Redding's song These Arms of Mine on his record player. In this song's lyrics, a man is alone and thinking about embracing a woman, named Baby, whom he desires:

These arms of mine,
They are lonely,
Lonely and feeling blue.

These arms of mine,
They are yearning,
Yearning from wanting you.

And if you would let them hold you,
Oh, how grateful I will be.

These arms of mine,
They are burning,
Burning from wanting you.

These arms of mine,
They are wanting,
Wanting to hold you.

Come on, come on, Baby,
Just be my little woman.
Just be my lover.

The song continues to be heard in the background as Baby tries to explain to Johnny that he should not worry about her father's anger about the abortion.

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The conversation about her father's anger is concluded, and then Baby asks Johnny to dance. At that moment, the next record falls and begins to play the song "Cry to Me" by Solomon Burke. Baby and Johnny dance to the song with growing sexuality.

In this second song too, a man is alone and thinking about a woman, named Baby, whom he desires. He imagines that the woman likewise is lonely -- so lonely that she is even crying. He imagines that they will get together and simply go for a walk.

When your baby leaves you all alone
And nobody calls you on the phone,
Don't you feel like crying?

Well, here I am, my honey.
Come on, Baby, cry to me.

When you're all alone in your lonely room
And there's nothing but the smell of her perfume
Don't you feel like crying?

Nothing could be sadder than a glass of wine alone.
Loneliness loneliness, it's just a waste of your time.

But you don't ever you don't ever have to walk alone.
Come take my hand, Baby, won't you walk with me?

Actually, the lyrics are not clear about whether the man or the woman is the lonely person. Maybe the singing man is not lonely but he understands that the woman is lonely, and so his is inviting her to come to him.

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I don't think the song works well when sung by a woman, because men are not supposed to cry. However, I think that a man-woman duet works, because then they both are crying.

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Although Johnny happened to be alone in his cabin, he was not generally lonely. Johnny had been at the resort all summer and had many friends -- Billy Kostecki, Penny Johnson, his other fellow dancers and hotel employees and his various "bungalow bunnies". Johnny was teaching dance to the guests and was planning dances for the talent show. Johnny knew also people at other nearby hotels, such as the Sheldrake.

The lonely person in this scene is Baby. She is basically a loner, a bookworm. She has been at the resort for only a couple of weeks. She does not want to spend time with her parents or sister. She apparently does not socialize with other guests.

The resort employees are not supposed to socialize with her. Neil Kellerman is able and willing to socialize  with her, but she avoids him.

Because Johnny is not lonely, he does not go visit Baby. Rather, because Baby is lonely, she goes to visit Johnny without being invited. It's not clear that he missed her or wanted her to visit, especially after he had been insulted by her father.

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The song "Cry to Me" was written by Bert Berns, whose life through 1963 is described by Wikipedia as follows:

Bertrand Russell "Bert" Berns (November 8, 1929 – December 30, 1967), also known as Bert Russell and (occasionally) Russell Byrd, was an American songwriter and record producer of the 1960s. ...

Born in the Bronx, New York City, to Russian Jewish immigrants, Berns contracted rheumatic fever as a child, an illness that damaged his heart and would mark the rest of his life, resulting in his early death. Turning to music, he found consonance in the sounds of his African-American and Latino neighbors. As a young man, Berns danced in mambo nightclubs, and made his way to Havana before the Cuban Revolution.

Shortly after his return from Cuba, ... he signed as a $50/week songwriter with Robert Mellin Music at 1650 Broadway in 1960. His first hit record was "A Little Bit of Soap", performed by the Jarmels on Laurie Records in 1961.

Berns himself had a short-lived career as a recording artist, and in 1961, under the name "Russell Byrd", Berns scored his only Billboard Hot 100 appearance with his own composition, "You'd Better Come Home", which peaked at Number 50. That song would later be recorded by the Isley Brothers, and featured as the B-side of their 1962 single "Twistin' With Linda". Also in 1962, the Isley Brothers recorded "Twist and Shout" on Wand Records, written by Berns and Phil Medley.

Berns also hit the charts in late 1962 with the Exciters' "Tell Him" on United Artists, and with Solomon Burke's "Cry to Me" on Atlantic Records. ...

Berns's early work with Solomon Burke brought him to the attention of Atlantic label chiefs Ahmet Ertegün and Jerry Wexler. In 1963, Berns ... [became] the staff producer at Atlantic [record company], where he wrote and produced hits for Solomon Burke ("Everybody Needs Somebody to Love"), the Drifters ("Under the Boardwalk" and "Saturday Night at the Movies"), Barbara Lewis ("Baby I'm Yours" and "Make Me Your Baby"), Little Esther Phillips ("Hello Walls"), Ben E. King, Wilson Pickett and LaVern Baker.

Solomon Burke and Bert Berns in the early 1960s

Music journalist Joel Selvin has characterized Berns' musical talent as follows:

Berns was the funky one, the street cat, the producer who spoke the musicians' language. He was not a schooled musician ..., but he could read and write music. As a youth, he studied classical piano and would occasionally return to those pieces, but only for his own private entertainment. He was no virtuoso, but he could get his point across.

As a guitarist, he could wring a galloping, signature sound out of his nylon-stringed model that stitches its way through a number of his productions ...

During his first year in the record business, Berns fumbled around for his voice, but once he found his spiritual link to the mambo and rhythm and blues, he instinctively grew into an auteur, an artist who used personal themes to fashion universal messages. ...

His records with Solomon Burke established the singer as one of the most formidable figures of the rhythm and blues world, shoulder-to-shoulder with peers such as Sam Cooke, James Brown, Jackie Wilson and Ray Charles. He brought the heart of mambo into rock and roll - not the supple Brazilian samba rhythms found in records by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller or Burt Bacharach, but fiery Afro-Cuban incantations that pulsed with sex and sin. Almost alone among his contemporaries on the New York scene, Berns traveled to England as his song "Twist and Shout" rose as an anthem to a new generation of British musicians, where he made key records in the country's pop transformation. As he devoted more time to running his own record label, Bang Records, Berns started the careers of future giants Van Morrison and Neil Diamond.

The Wikipedia article about the song Cry to Me includes the following passages:

On December 6, 1961, [Solomon] Burke recorded one of his best known songs, "Cry to Me", an ode to loneliness and desire, one of the first songs to unify country, gospel and rhythm and blues in one package ....

Burke [and Berns] had a difficult relationship. Burke distrusted the young producer, and often spoke of him disparagingly, but later acknowledged Berns as "a genius" and "a great writer, a great man." Cissy Houston, who provided backing vocals on several of Burke's songs that were produced by Berns, believed "Burke changed his mind about Bert as soon as Sol started working with him in the studio. Bert's emotion-charged songs and Sol's gospel delivery was a marriage made in heaven."

Although Burke recognized Berns's skill for crafting hit records, he rejected two Berns compositions, "Hang on Sloopy" (later recorded by (The McCoys), and "A Little Bit of Soap", a recent hit for The Jarmels. ... In frustration after Burke had rejected his song choices, Berns offered him a final song, "Cry to Me", which Berns sang to him very slowly. According to Burke in a 2008 interview: "I said 'That's terrible. It's just too slow for me, I don't like slow songs.' And Mr Wexler says, 'Listen this guy writes for you, you're pissing him off. You're pissing me off, too.'" ...

Released in 1962, "Cry to Me" became Burke's second entry in the US charts, peaking at #5 on the rhythm-and-blues charts On March 20, 1962, Burke sang "Cry to Me" on American Bandstand. ...

After "Cry to Me", Burke became one of the first performers to be called a "soul" artist. In "Cry to Me", and in his "most popular recordings from 1962 onward, elements of the African-American folk-preaching style", which incorporated "the fusion of speech and song", "the use of repetition or elongation for emphasis", and the improvisation of "hollers and vocal melismas", the "flowers and curlicues of gospel singing",are salient. ...

The Wikipedia article about Solomon Burke includes the following passages:

Burke was born James Solomon McDonald on March 21, 1940 in the upper floor of his grandmother Eleanor Moore's home, a row house in West Philadelphia. Burke was the child of Josephine Moore and an absentee father. His mother Josephine was a nurse, schoolteacher, concert performer and pastor. Burke was consecrated a bishop at birth by his grandmother in the Solomon's Temple, a congregation of the United House of Prayer for All People, which she founded at her home in Black Bottom, West Philadelphia. When Burke was nine, his mother married rabbi and butcher Vincent Burke and had his name changed to Solomon Vincent McDonald Burke. ....

Burke credited his grandmother as his main spiritual and musical influence. He learned how to sing all forms of music from his grandmother's coaching him to listen to music on the radio. Burke began preaching at the age of seven at the Solomon's Temple. He was described in his young preaching years as a "frantic sermonizer" and "spellbinding in his delivery"; and was soon nicknamed the "Boy Wonder Preacher" for his charismatic preaching in the pulpit. Burke became a pastor of the congregation at age 12, appeared on the radio station WDAS, and later hosted a gospel show on WHAT-AM, mixing songs and sermons in broadcasts from Solomon's Temple. On weekends he traveled with a truck and tent, to Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas to carry on the spiritual crusade of his church. ....

From an early age Solomon Burke worked to supplement his family's income. He recalled: "I used to deliver grocery orders in a little wagon I made out of fish boxes. When I was seven, I sold newspapers out of my own newsstand on the corner of 40th and Lancaster. I had the first 99-cent car wash, which was located at 40th and Wallace outside Al's Barber Shop. We had it there because he was the only one who would let us use his water. We could wash your car in 20 minutes. I had four or five guys, gave 'em each a nickel for each car." Another briefly held early job was as a hot dog seller at Eddie's Meat Market, where his friend Ernest Evans, later known as Chubby Checker, also worked.

Burke eventually graduated from John Bartram High School. He first became a father at 14.

During high school, Burke formed and fronted the quartet, the Gospel Cavaliers. He received his first guitar from his grandmother, later writing his first song, "Christmas Presents". The Cavaliers began performing in churches. It was around this time that Burke met Kae "Loudmouth" Williams, a famed Philadelphia deejay with help from Williams' wife, Viola, who saw Burke and the Cavaliers perform at church.

Before entering a gospel talent contest in which a record deal was for first prize, the group split up. Burke entered the contest, held at Cornerstone Baptist Church, as a solo artist and won the contest against eleven other competitors. Soon, several labels including Apollo, Vee-Jay Records and Peacock Records pursued the 15-year-old. .... Burke signed with Apollo Records in late 1955, following the departure of gospel singer and the label's primary star Mahalia Jackson to Columbia. ...

Burke recorded nine singles for the label during his two-year tenure, releasing his first single, "Christmas Presents", on Christmas Eve of 1955. ... His early records did not sell well ... Burke was abruptly dropped from Apollo following a violent argument with manager Kae Williams over performance royalties. Burke claimed Williams had him "blackballed" from the industry following this move. ...

Following his initial Apollo departure, Burke struggled to record or get club dates, and an argument with his mother left him homeless. ... During this time, Burke studied the Islamic faith. ... Soon afterwards, he married Delores Clark ... and soon had seven children. As his family grew, Burke trained for a while to be a mortician at Eckels College of Mortuary Science, graduating from mortuary science, and finding work at a funeral home. ...

In November 1960, he signed with Atlantic Records. .... At the time of Burke's signing, two of Atlantic Records' major stars, Bobby Darin and Ray Charles, had left the label for better deals ... Burke created a string of hits that carried the label financially and represented the first fully realized examples of the classic soul sound." Burke reportedly helped keep Atlantic Records solvent from 1961 to 1965 with his steady run of hit records.

Burke recorded thirty-two singles with Atlantic ... Burke's second single for the label was the country single, "Just Out of Reach (Of My Two Open Arms)", which became his first charted single, reaching #24 on the Billboard Hot 100 and peaking at #7 on the rhythm-and-blues charts. The song also became Burke's first million-seller.

His next hit came with "Cry to Me", which reached #5 on the rhythm-and-blues chart in 1962 and was described as one of the first songs to mix country, rhythm-and-blues and gospel. After the release of "Cry to Me", Burke was among one of the first artists to be referred to as a "soul artist".

Almost immediately after signing to Atlantic, [record producer Jerry] Wexler and Burke clashed over his branding and the songs that he would record. According to Burke, "Their idea was, we have another young kid to sing gospel, and we’re going to put him in the blues bag." As Burke had struggled from an early age with "his attraction to secular music on the one hand and his allegiance to the church on the other," when he was signed to Atlantic Records he "refused to be classified as a rhythm-and-blues singer" due to a perceived "stigma of profanity" by the church, and rhythm-and-blues' reputation as "the devil's music."

Burke indicated in 2005: "I told them about my spiritual background, and what I felt was necessary, and that I was concerned about being labeled rhythm-and-blues. What kind of songs would they be giving me to sing? Because of my age, and my position in the church, I was concerned about saying things that were not proper, or that sent the wrong message. That angered Jerry Wexler a little bit. He said, ‘We’re the greatest blues label in the world! You should be honored to be on this label, and we’ll do everything we can – but you have to work with us.’" To mollify Burke, it was decided to market him as a singer of "soul music" after he had consulted his church brethren and won approval for the term. .... Burke is credited with coining the term "soul music". ...

He "became known as much for his showmanship as he did his voice. He would often take the stage in a flowing, 15-foot-long cape and bejeweled crown .... As he increased in weight, "Burke’s sheer bulk meant that he could never be a dancer ... Consequently, over the years Burke "evolved a fervently demonstrative stage act", that were often compared with religious revival meetings. Burke ... would adopt the "house-wrecking" tactics of black preachers, and their shows functioned in much the same way as black religious events in that performer and audience became immersed in the music, arriving together at an ecstatic state that allowed them to feel a deep intensity of experience. .... Burke "turned theatres like the Apollo and the Uptown into churches, he had folk running down the aisles to be saved by his music."

The showmanship of Burke's later years is illustrated by the following video:

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The Rolling Stones recorded the song "Cry to Me" in 1965.

The Song "The Time of My Life" by Frank Previte - Part 2

Continued from Part 1.

When the movie's music producer Jimmy Ienner was deciding in 1986 which new songs would be sung in the movie's final scene, he asked for proposals from singer-songwriter Franke Previte. Five years earlier, Previte had been the lead singer in a band called The Knockouts, for which Ienner had been the producer.

The following video shows The Knockouts playing their top song "Sweetheart" in 1981.

The song's lyrics, written by Previte, are lousy poetry, but they do create a mental image of a dramatic scene.

I know, Baby, it's hard to be strong.
Just take the good with the bad,
And don't think you're alone.

'Cause I know all your sad goodbyes,
'Cause I've been there before
To help you dry your eyes.

Sweetheart,
Who loves you from the start?
Who treats you like a star?

Oh, sweetheart,
Who loves you baby?
Who loves you wrong or right?

'Cause you're the spark in my life,
Yeah, day and night

The following video shows The Knockouts being interviewed by Dick Clark in 1982:

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Such lyrics that Previte wrote were good enough for Ienner, who evidently was satisfied with the catchy phrase "I've Had the Time of My Life:" Here are the latter song's lyrics:

Now I've had the time of my life.
No, I never felt like this before.
Yes, I swear it's the truth,
And I owe it all to you.

I've been waiting for so long.
Now I've finally found
Someone to stand by me.

We saw the writing on the wall
As we felt this magical fantasy.
Now with passion in our eyes
There's no way
We could disguise it secretly.

So we take each other's hand
'Cause we seem to understand
The urgency.

Just remember:
You're the one thing
I can't get enough of

So I'll tell you something:
This could be love because
I've had the time of my life.

With my body and soul
I want you more
Than you'll ever know.
So we'll just let it go.

Don't be afraid to lose control.
Yes, I know what's on your mind
When you say:
"Stay with me tonight."

I've searched through every open door
Till I found the truth,
And I owe it all to you
Now I've had the time of my life.

Again, the poetry is lousy, but it does express the feelings that Baby was experiencing during that dance.

Only the last stanza, in my opinion, expresses Johnny's feelings. Johnny was the character who seemed to be "searching through every door" and who "found the truth, and I owe it all to you".

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Also receiving credit for writing the song were John DeNicola and Donald Markowitz. Previte has described their contributions to the song in an interview published on the website American Songwriter.

He [Ienner] gave me a short description of the movie and said ‘the good news is you can write the song. The bad news is it’s gotta be seven minutes long!’ So I’m thinking “MacArthur Park” and songs like that.

My songwriting partner John DeNicola and I were writing and making demos, trying to get a record deal. .... I called John and I told him that I had an offer from Jimmy Ienner to write a song for this movie. I said ‘Let’s start the song in half-time, with the chorus up front and then double-time the verses.’ The first thing I thought of was Donna Summer’s “Last Dance.”

Don Markowitz was a friend of John’s. He had an eight-track recorder at his house and John only had four[-track]. So John went to Don’s and then changes were made to the music. Don said ‘how about this change, or this bass line and then you can go to this chord?’ So they formulated the music and then sent me the track. From that, I made further edits and we sent it to Jimmy, who said ‘I like it. Make it a song!’

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The song "Time of My Life" was delivered after the movie's final scene already had been rehearsed to a different song. Previte told American Songwriter:

When I [Previte] met Patrick [Swayze] at the Oscars [in 1988], he told me:

"You have no idea what this song did for this movie. We filmed the movie out of sequence so the last scene was the first one filmed. We listened to 149 songs and hated them. We rehearsed every day to a Lionel Richie track. Good song but it wasn’t our song. We all felt the ending wasn’t happening and the movie was going to bomb."

"Then your cassette with you and Rachele Cappelli singing 'Time of My Life' came in. We filmed to that, and at the end of the day we all looked at each other and said "Wow, what just happened? This ending is awesome! Let’s go make this movie!"

It changed everything for them for the better. The camaraderie that wasn’t there was now there.  

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In the following video, Previte tells how he wrote the song (beginning at 1:30).

The website Song Facts includes a superb webpage about the song Time of My Life. You should read that webpage. I will highlight only the following passage, which specifies Ienner's key requirements:

This song had to fit some specific criteria for the movie: it had to start slow, finish fast, and have a mambo beat. ... The scene was seven minutes long. They needed the song to be just as long. So we started the track with the chorus up front in half time to create a slow mood before the downbeat of the verse.

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The Dirty Dancing producers offered Previte $1,000 for the rights of each of the two songs -- "Hungry Eyes" and "Time of My Life", but he insisted on $3,500 for each of the songs plus retention of the copyrights. Because he did retain the songs' copyrights, Previte in the year 2000 still was earning at least $250,000 a year just from the song "Time of My Life".

Previte estimates that he gets quarterly checks of $10,000 to $30,000 for radio airplay, additional quarterly checks of $50,000 to $100,000 from the hit stage adaptation, and annual checks of $100,000-$125,000 when the song is used in commercials.

I suppose that DeNicola and Markowitz were paid fully out of the $3,500 initial payment.

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The song was sung as a male-female duet by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes. The Song Facts website includes an informative interview of Medley. The Leonard Cohen Forum website includes an informative interview of Warnes.

The book Risky Business: Rock in Film, which I discussed in my earlier article Business Decisions About the Movie's Music, tells how Ienner convinced Medley and Warnes to sing the song for the movie.

Ienner wanted the title tune to have a period feel and was set on getting Sixties soul singer Bill Medley to sing it. The former Righteous Brother was reluctant., as his duet with Gladys Knight, "Loving on Borrowed Time", for the soundtrack of [Sylvester] Stallone's Cobra had flopped.

I thought a Stallone movie couldn't miss," he [Medley] said. "With a hit movie, the title song has a real good shot to make it. When the movie flopped, that took the heart out of me. I wasn't that eager to do another soundtrack song, especially for a small movie with an unknown cast. Odds were against this movie becoming a hit."

Ienner offered to move the record session from New York to Los Angeles so that Medley could be close to his pregnant wife, and Medley reconsidered.

Jennifer Warnes, selected as his partner, was already known for her successful "Right Time of the Night". She had achieved status in the business, with three more theme songs to her credit: "It Goes like It Goes" from [the movie] Norma Rae (1979), "One More Hour", from Ragtime (1981) and a #1 hit in 1982 with Joe Crocker, "Up Where We Belong" from An Officer and a Gentleman. All three songs received Academy Award nominations for Best Song from a Motion Picture. "It Goes Like This" and "Up Where We Belong" both won.

Ienner thought the singer's blend of earthy and pristine approximated the images of the young lovers. ...

The following video shows Medley and Warnes performing the song live soon after the movie was released.

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I like these amateur performances.

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A trio called Acoustic River, comprising Carmen Porcar, Gustavo Sosa and Toni Gilaber.

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Glendale High School