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Post by RobGNYC on Oct 30, 2023 16:19:43 GMT -5
I never thought that the “cynical and bitter” line had anything to do with her success or her friends’ jealousy of that success but rather that the friends were no help when she was trying to deal with the broken relationship and she didn’t want to be “just like them now.”
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Post by eddiejinnj on Nov 1, 2023 6:59:30 GMT -5
My take is that she is saying that those around her were "cynical and bitter" maybe from their broken relationships, life's bumps etc and that she is "just like them now" eddijinfl
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Post by erik on Nov 1, 2023 9:10:32 GMT -5
With respect to "Try Me Again"--While I think it is fun to a certain extent to speculate who or what the song is about, I prefer to revel in the fact that Linda even wrote a song, let alone that one song, at all, and wrote and sang it in such a passionate way. The same goes for "Lo Siento Mi Vida", the first over flaring on record of her Mexican-American background, and the later "Winter Light".
And this is from someone who once said that she'd hate to add to the ever-increasing pile of bad songs--which, again strictly from my own point of view, I don't think is possible when you see the results of the three examples just cited.
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Post by PoP80 on Nov 1, 2023 12:46:31 GMT -5
The thing that confounds me about "Try Me Again" is that Linda has said she never had her heart broken. TMA strikes me as having very raw and real emotion. I don't think she would have written it if it WASN"T about her own personal experience. One time she did admit being embarrassed that she ever felt that bad, so obviously she was romantically heartbroken at least once in her life.
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Post by erik on Nov 1, 2023 18:01:56 GMT -5
Quote by PoP80:
Obviously it had to have been a pretty big incident of heartbreak for Linda to have written that song. I don't doubt for a nanosecond that it is a very raw and emotional song, and that it may have revealed much more about Linda than she had intended. Dare I say it, she is human, and as feelings and emotions, and here she writes a great song out of this experience. I only wish it didn't take this kind of thing happening to her to spawn it, because clearly she had the ability, the gift, the heart, and the intelligence for it (IMHO).
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Post by RobGNYC on Nov 1, 2023 22:03:40 GMT -5
The thing that confounds me about "Try Me Again" is that Linda has said she never had her heart broken. TMA strikes me as having very raw and real emotion. I don't think she would have written it if it was about her own personal experience. One time she did admit being embarrassed that she ever felt that bad, so obviously she was romantically heartbroken at least once in her life. If I understand your point (with which I agree), I think you meant to say “if it WASN’T about her own personal experience.”
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liza
A Number and a Name
Posts: 25
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Post by liza on Nov 1, 2023 23:03:20 GMT -5
Certainly, we can't see into anyone else's heart or mind. But these last posts caused me to look up an article I recall reading. It was a Playboy interview from 1980 and this is the exchange I remembered:
PLAYBOY: How many times have you been in love?
RONSTADT: It's really a little death, in a way, falling in love, because you surrender yourself. When you're about to fall in love, you have this inner dialog. You know, Is this guy really cool, is he thoughtful, has he shown me strength of character, do I love him? At some point, when you are really in love, you stop having this inner dialog and you just go on and love that person unconditionally and when you do, it's a little death. You surrender and you just totally let yourself open to that and it's the most vulnerable position to be in. But to me, it's the ultimate of sexual excitement to fall totally in love.
PLAYBOY: How many times has that happened to you?
RONSTADT: I went over that line only once. It was really frightening and it took me about two years to come back.
It sounds there as though there might have been at least one relationship that left some scars!
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Post by PoP80 on Nov 2, 2023 9:31:28 GMT -5
The thing that confounds me about "Try Me Again" is that Linda has said she never had her heart broken. TMA strikes me as having very raw and real emotion. I don't think she would have written it if it was about her own personal experience. One time she did admit being embarrassed that she ever felt that bad, so obviously she was romantically heartbroken at least once in her life. If I understand your point (with which I agree), I think you meant to say “if it WASN’T about her own personal experience.” Yes, sorry--typo corrected!
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Post by sliderocker on Nov 6, 2023 11:50:38 GMT -5
Quote by PoP80: I believe Try Me Again did reveal more about Linda than she intended, given what I call Linda's incredible shyness and keeping her private life very private. Almost to an extreme. Linda's personal life is more of a well kept secret than what Elvis's personal life ever was, even though they lived very similar lives when it came to their privacy. Linda keeping to herself may keep hundreds of books from being written about her, which would be a good thing. However, I also believe what few books that may be written about her after she has departed this world may be sensationalistic biographies, impossible to verify as to the accuracy of the claims. Who among us could dispute the claims - if we're still around too, given we didn't know Linda personally? As it pertains to her songwriting, I believe Linda was working on her songwriting chops even back in the day of the Stone Poneys. Bobby and Kenny were both songwriters, and she may have been judging herself against their songwriting capabilities. And later on, Neil Young, James Taylor, Jackson Browne, ANdrew Gold and J.D. Souther among others. I believe all of those guys would've encouraged, not discouraged Linda on writing songs. But, because Linda didn't think her songwriting efforts were any good, I still believe there had to be others in her world who were dismissive of her songwriting efforts. The names of the guilty may be lost to history, but it's hard to believe that Try Me Again was the stunning achievement of a novice songwriter. Linda's whole career is a history of Linda selling herself short as a singer, and one can take that as selling herself short as a musician and songwriter. We can say she was merely being humble and down to earth about her achievements. But, by being so, maybe that was also to guard herself against attacks from those who dismissed her talents, regardless of whether they were fellow musicians or music critics.
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Post by PoP80 on Nov 6, 2023 16:59:10 GMT -5
Do I dare ask if Try Me Again was written about the “mysterious Rick?”
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Post by RobGNYC on Nov 6, 2023 17:29:27 GMT -5
I don’t think the timeline works out for it to be Rick, if we’re talking about the Rick that came up in an earlier Forum discussion: “The person known as Rick is Richard Norton, who was offered a job doing security on a 1979 U.S. tour with Linda Ronstadt as her personal bodyguard and trainer.” To be the subject of “Try Me Again,” Linda would have had to know him in 1975-1976 (and he would have had to live close enough for her to drive past his house and look in the window, if the lyrics are a true account). Albert Brooks fits time-wise (Pete Hamill too but he was always in New York)—I don’t think we’ll ever know for sure, Linda ain’t saying, and that’s just fine, a little mystery is good. Carly Simon built a career on not saying whom “You’re So Vain” was about.
If you want a definition of “squalid,” check out one of the too-many “celebrity dating history” websites. Awful, and frequently inaccurate. The internet equivalent of “Confidential” magazine. File under “I looked so you won’t have to.”
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Post by LindaFan5 on Nov 6, 2023 22:21:42 GMT -5
In an interview she talked about going back and forth between musicians and non musicians. She seemed to fall hard for JD Souther and Lowell George when Albert Brooks and Jerrry Brown might have been the wiser choices. Who really knows. I get a strong feeling Brooks was tossed aside for another try with JD and Try Me Again is for Brooks. But I have zero actual Info to back that up. Linda and Albert seemed so cute together. Her choices in men were great actually. Pete Hamill! I liked that one for her. I think the non-musicians would have been the way to go but I don’t really know why I think that.
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Post by RobGNYC on Nov 6, 2023 22:34:18 GMT -5
Pete Hamill’s “A Drinking Life” is one of the best books I’ve ever read in my (drinking) life.
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Post by erik on Nov 7, 2023 0:45:53 GMT -5
Quote by sliderocker:
It could very well have been the misogyny that existed (and still does to a great extent) in the music business in that time, but I tend to believe it came not from her fellow musicians, but from certain men in positions of power at the labels, and the ever-present male chauvinist music critics out there. Also, there were the ridiculously high standards of songwriting that had been set in the 1960's, first by Bob Dylan and then by Lennon and McCartney, along with Carole King and Joni Mitchell insofar as female singer/songwriters were concerned. It could have been those things that may have totally contorted her sense of self-worth...unnecessarily, in my opinion.
But I do agree that "Try Me Again", while obviously the first instance of a song written by Linda that actually made it onto an album, wasn't necessarily the first time she had at least tried to write. Linda may be right that there are plenty of really bad songs out there, but most of them are written by committee and almost wholly for the money. Would Linda have ever been about that? A half-century track record tells me No.
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Post by sliderocker on Nov 7, 2023 13:09:46 GMT -5
It could very well have been the misogyny that existed (and still does to a great extent) in the music business in that time, but I tend to believe it came not from her fellow musicians, but from certain men in positions of power at the labels, and the ever-present male chauvinist music critics out there. Also, there were the ridiculously high standards of songwriting that had been set in the 1960's, first by Bob Dylan and then by Lennon and McCartney, along with Carole King and Joni Mitchell insofar as female singer/songwriters were concerned. It could have been those things that may have totally contorted her sense of self-worth...unnecessarily, in my opinion.Given the number of songs in the 60s that these days are no longer regarded as being part of the rock genre, I believe Linda could've written her fair share of songs and had zero worry as to how they would measure up to Lennon-McCartney or Bob Dylan. She may have been intimidated by Joni Mitchell as Joni's folk songs tended to be artsy creations but never truly rock. Carole King was well known in the 60s, she and her late ex-husband Gerry Goffin were an influence on said Lennon-McCartney. However, not everything written by Carole and Gerry was a work of art, but they were still good pop-rock gems. So, if Linda knew much of Carole's and Gerry's catalog, she could well have been intimidated. I got my doubts however that Linda's early songwriting efforts, if those early writing efforts took place in the 60s, that she would've classed them as rock songs. More likely folk songs or ballads. And given her shyness, she may have been afraid to have offered her own efforts at the recording sessions, especially if she had not ran them by Bobby and Kenny first to get their reactions. And while I believe male musicians in Linda's world would've been 100% supportive of her songwriting efforts, outside of that community, she probably would've gotten little support. The rock music industry was a competitive business in the 60s, especially after Lennon-McCartney and others in the British Invasion had changed the music world from depending on artists who didn't write their own songs and depended on non-performing songwriters to self-contained artists and bands who didn't need songs from outside sources. So, I believe Linda probably ran into some of the misogyny at her record label and from male critics. But, I don't rule out any misogyny from male musicians outside of her personal world or even inside of her personal world. It was a different time and world then. But I do agree that "Try Me Again", while obviously the first instance of a song written by Linda that actually made it onto an album, wasn't necessarily the first time she had at least tried to write. Linda may be right that there are plenty of really bad songs out there, but most of them are written by committee and almost wholly for the money. Would Linda have ever been about that? A half-century track record tells me No.I agree some bad songs are written by committees, but I also think the rock and pop genre has been an artform that has evolved and continues to evolve. And one of the worse things to happen are the songs that were considered rock in the 50s and 60s and so on, are not considered rock today. But, country has adapted much of what used to pass for rock as its own as the artists who are country artists today came from a rock background. Carrie Underwood said her personal musical taste is rock but when she sings, it comes out country, so she sings country. I don't know if she listens to much country. I believe she would have to in order to keep up with the competition. But, no, Linda would never have been about the royalties from songwriting, which still remain the lowest royalties of all in the recording business. And Linda never could've written a bad song. I just wish I could've been around her in the 60s and early 70s, encouraging her to write and record her own songs. An original song, even if it was bad, would've been better than the 1000th cover of a song in which nothing new was added to an arrangement but the vocalist. Linda was better much of the time than her material of old chestnuts that needed to be retired from further studio recordings if nothing new could be added.
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Post by erik on Nov 7, 2023 19:18:48 GMT -5
Quote by sliderocker:
I probably should clarify what I said about songs being written by committee. This is happening infinitely much more today; to my knowledge, it didn't happen much (if at all) during those glory singer/songwriter days of the 1960's and 1970's. Someone can get a songwriting credit on a song for just a single word in a lyric, which results in one song being credited to as many as seven or eight different people. This happens much more in country music these days.
In the case of Carrie Underwood, I don't doubt that she'd have to listen to a fair amount of country on the radio to keep up. However, her voice is flexible so that, having done "Different Drum", "Blue Bayou", and "When Will I Be Loved?" in honoring Linda, she has shown the capacity balance what her personal choice is with what her actual audience wants.
Back to Linda, now: For better or worse, Linda has been known for essaying a lot of songs in various genres, most notably country (primarily what she heard on the radio as a kid between 1948 and 1961), R&B, and rock and roll. It made her the target of more than a few critics at the height of her popularity. Could she have avoided this by being more of a songwriter early on? One would have hoped so; but if we know anything about the history of rock critics when it comes to Linda, it's very likely that they would have found something to b**ch, whine, and bellyache about there as well. Of course, this is all pure speculation; but I think any songwriting effort of Linda's, regardless of genre (in her case, mixing folk, pop, country, and rock), would have been a huge gift for her peers and her fans, critics be damned (IMHO).
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Post by sliderocker on Nov 10, 2023 14:03:18 GMT -5
I probably should clarify what I said about songs being written by committee. This is happening infinitely much more today; to my knowledge, it didn't happen much (if at all) during those glory singer/songwriter days of the 1960's and 1970's. Someone can get a songwriting credit on a song for just a single word in a lyric, which results in one song being credited to as many as seven or eight different people. This happens much more in country music these days.My guess would be that a lot of "committee" songs may in fact be songs that began in the recording studio, as part of a jam session, and the artist liked what he or she heard and was in a generous mood and credited all of the musicians taking part. I've heard of someone contributing just one word to a song and having their name added to the credits. I don't know if they would've gotten half of the songwriting credit or a token percentage. Ringo Starr came up with a couple of titles on Lennon-McCartney songs, but neither John or Paul or Brian Epstein gave Ringo a songwriting credit. Only one Beatles song would carry a Lennon-McCartney-Starkey songwriting credit. And that was for What Goes On, which was sung by Ringo. Back to Linda, now: For better or worse, Linda has been known for essaying a lot of songs in various genres, most notably country (primarily what she heard on the radio as a kid between 1948 and 1961), R&B, and rock and roll. It made her the target of more than a few critics at the height of her popularity. Could she have avoided this by being more of a songwriter early on? One would have hoped so; but if we know anything about the history of rock critics when it comes to Linda, it's very likely that they would have found something to b**ch, whine, and bellyache about there as well. Of course, this is all pure speculation; but I think any songwriting effort of Linda's, regardless of genre (in her case, mixing folk, pop, country, and rock), would have been a huge gift for her peers and her fans, critics be damned (IMHO).[I don't think the critics would've been kinder if Linda had a few songwriting credits on her albums. For all of the squawk about originality, critics didn't really like female songwriters. Mostly because they were writing from a woman's perspective and all critics felt songs should be from a man's perspective. Even if Linda had recorded original songs by others and had the publishing on the songs, I think the critics would still have hurled harsh words and poisonous barbs at her. I still wish she had done that instead of almost every album being a collection of covers. She would've won the critics over regardless and made them like what they heard, even if they denied it.
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Post by eddiejinnj on Nov 11, 2023 5:37:49 GMT -5
Wasn't Linda dating Hamill much after '76, like in the 80's? I found Hamill's book in a thrift shop and it is around here somewhere. Haven't read it yet. Currently, I am reading "The September Society", a mystery set in 1866 England. eddiejinnj
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