Todd in the Shadows - RAMBLE ON: "Here You Come Again" by Dolly Parton
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“Here You Come Again” is my favorite Dolly Parton song, and it was considered absolute garbage in some corners back in the day. Here’s a quote from the Rolling Stone Album Guide: “By the time Parton achieved that goal [of a pop crossover] a couple years later, she’d left the distinctive musical approach behind. Her 1977 pop hit ‘Here You Come Again’ could just as easily have been recorded by Helen Reddy.” (It goes on to praise the more authentic 9 to 5 album “despite its peppy title hit.”) This wasn’t the only opinion about “Here You Come Again” and probably not the predominant one (it was a top five hit after all) but it wasn’t rare either. “Long-time fans of buxom Dolly who purchase her newest LP will have a difficult time forcing themselves to quit drooling over the album jacket and play its contents,” wrote the Florida Times-Union back in ‘77. “When they do, they will be sorry that they did.”
I don’t agree with the negative reactions, but they are at least legible; “Here You Come Again” has an uphill battle to be considered one of Dolly’s best songs. Compared to the weight of “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You,” it is fluff; compared to the small-town authenticity of “Coat of Many Colors” or “Applejack,” it is blatant sellout material; and while it was her biggest song at the time, it’s now far distant in cultural omnipresence compared to her other pop hits like “9 to 5” and “Islands in the Stream.” It does not demonstrate Dolly’s brilliance as a songwriter, since she didn’t write it (a rarity in her canon). It is likely not the song you would use to encapsulate the greatness of Dolly Parton.
Still, being the fifth most popular Dolly song is not a small feat (one of the canonical five Dolly songs that recharted this week), and, like “I Will Always Love You,” it holds a pivotal role in Dolly’s biography. There are three canon years in the Dolly mythology: 1974, the year she left Porter Wagoner; 1980, the year she became a movie star; and in between, 1977, the year she left for Hollywood, having greater ambitions in life than she could achieve in the stifling atmosphere of Nashville. In a quote that would be repeated many times that year, she said she wasn’t leaving country music, she was taking it with her – a preemptive defense of what can reasonably be considered an abandonment of her roots.
In interviews I can find, Dolly herself seems a little ambivalent about the results of her grand pop experiment (though certainly not the decision to try it). Dolly finally shed Wagoner from her career for good in 1976, and was lucky enough to produce her next album, 1977’s New Harvest… First Gathering, on her own. She did not get the chance to repeat that feat; too busy with her many other obligations to handle the production on her second album that year (lord, the insane workrate of Dolly Parton), she brought in a hired gun, and she admits she can’t help but wish she could have done it herself.
Since Dolly is not the auteur behind “Here You Come Again,” it’s easy to give credit to others, since they all have fine pedigrees. The producer is Gary Klein, who made pop crossover stars of Mac Davis and Glen Campbell. (Dolly’s own pop instincts were not necessarily great; New Harvest has a breathy ‘70s soft rock cover of “My Girl,” renamed “My Love,” which I maybe shouldn’t even have mentioned out of respect for the dead.) The songwriters are the legends Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Rock and Roll Hall of Famers for writing such ‘60s standards as as “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” “On Broadway,” “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” etc. In the ‘70s they hit a bit of a slump but “Here You Come Again” brought them back to the top of the charts. The singer who ended up with it originally is BJ Thomas, but his version is quite bad. Klein finds it and rescues it for Dolly.
Mann’s original demo is on YouTube and in it you can hear that his intended vocalist was probably Barry Manilow. (I wonder what Barry Mann, who had his own brief singing career, thinks of Manilow, the man who stole his name plus “ilow.”) Manilow, for the record, would have killed it. Helen Reddy would likely have done fine by it also. (This Patreon has already documented its appreciation of both Manilow and Reddy.) But even if, as per Rolling Stone, Helen Reddy could have sung it, she didn’t sing it, and she certainly couldn’t have sung it like Dolly sings it – all the praise in the past couple weeks has mostly focused on her songwriting, her charming personality and her philanthropy, but my god, what a voice. As I perused Dolly’s greatest hits, I was struck by her part “Islands in the Stream,” a song I’ve never been a huge fan of. (“I set out to get you with a fine-toothed comb”?) But the way she sings, “No more will you cry,” happy, silly, sad and wistful all at the time. She brings that same charm to “Here You Go Again,” a song about being swept away by a charmer against her better instincts, a complicated emotion that she sells effortlessly, both the lovestruck sweep and the anticipation of the loneliness to come. Only Dolly had the charm to pull that off; it is a tragedy that Dolly as an actress only made comedies, I think she could have broken some hearts in a real romance film.
Dolly wasn’t completely without input on the song’s production; her biggest contribution was the inclusion of a steel guitar – primarily to preempt criticism that she wasn’t country anymore, but it’s a beautiful touch regardless, playing slightly behind the beat to represent Dolly’s hesitation and impeding heartbreak. Steel guitar or not, though, “Here You Come Again” is first and foremost a pop song, in ways that even “9 to 5” or “Islands in the Stream” are not, covered in strings and flutes and bright, bouncy piano and other easy listening touches. In hindsight, it had to be. Ken Burns’s documentary Country Music uses “Here You Come Again” to soundtrack Dolly’s rise to superstardom, and what other song could he have possibly used? Only Dolly could have made “Here You Come Again” as big as it is, but Dolly needed the song even more than it needed her. Dolly, trashy and glamourous and sparkling even from the beginning, was indeed always too big for country music; how could she have continued without a big glamorous pop song of her own?
“Here You Come Again” is my favorite Dolly Parton song, and it was considered absolute garbage in some corners back in the day. Here’s a quote from the Rolling Stone Album Guide: “By the time Parton achieved that goal [of a pop crossover] a couple years later, she’d left the distinctive musical approach behind. Her 1977 pop hit ‘Here You Come Again’ could just as easily have been recorded by Helen Reddy.” (It goes on to praise the more authentic 9 to 5 album “despite its peppy title hit.”) This wasn’t the only opinion about “Here You Come Again” and probably not the predominant one (it was a top five hit after all) but it wasn’t rare either. “Long-time fans of buxom Dolly who purchase her newest LP will have a difficult time forcing themselves to quit drooling over the album jacket and play its contents,” wrote the Florida Times-Union back in ‘77. “When they do, they will be sorry that they did.”
I don’t agree with the negative reactions, but they are at least legible; “Here You Come Again” has an uphill battle to be considered one of Dolly’s best songs. Compared to the weight of “Jolene” and “I Will Always Love You,” it is fluff; compared to the small-town authenticity of “Coat of Many Colors” or “Applejack,” it is blatant sellout material; and while it was her biggest song at the time, it’s now far distant in cultural omnipresence compared to her other pop hits like “9 to 5” and “Islands in the Stream.” It does not demonstrate Dolly’s brilliance as a songwriter, since she didn’t write it (a rarity in her canon). It is likely not the song you would use to encapsulate the greatness of Dolly Parton.
Still, being the fifth most popular Dolly song is not a small feat (one of the canonical five Dolly songs that recharted this week), and, like “I Will Always Love You,” it holds a pivotal role in Dolly’s biography. There are three canon years in the Dolly mythology: 1974, the year she left Porter Wagoner; 1980, the year she became a movie star; and in between, 1977, the year she left for Hollywood, having greater ambitions in life than she could achieve in the stifling atmosphere of Nashville. In a quote that would be repeated many times that year, she said she wasn’t leaving country music, she was taking it with her – a preemptive defense of what can reasonably be considered an abandonment of her roots.
In interviews I can find, Dolly herself seems a little ambivalent about the results of her grand pop experiment (though certainly not the decision to try it). Dolly finally shed Wagoner from her career for good in 1976, and was lucky enough to produce her next album, 1977’s New Harvest… First Gathering, on her own. She did not get the chance to repeat that feat; too busy with her many other obligations to handle the production on her second album that year (lord, the insane workrate of Dolly Parton), she brought in a hired gun, and she admits she can’t help but wish she could have done it herself.
Since Dolly is not the auteur behind “Here You Come Again,” it’s easy to give credit to others, since they all have fine pedigrees. The producer is Gary Klein, who made pop crossover stars of Mac Davis and Glen Campbell. (Dolly’s own pop instincts were not necessarily great; New Harvest has a breathy ‘70s soft rock cover of “My Girl,” renamed “My Love,” which I maybe shouldn’t even have mentioned out of respect for the dead.) The songwriters are the legends Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Rock and Roll Hall of Famers for writing such ‘60s standards as as “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” “On Broadway,” “We Gotta Get Out of This Place,” etc. In the ‘70s they hit a bit of a slump but “Here You Come Again” brought them back to the top of the charts. The singer who ended up with it originally is BJ Thomas, but his version is quite bad. Klein finds it and rescues it for Dolly.
Mann’s original demo is on YouTube and in it you can hear that his intended vocalist was probably Barry Manilow. (I wonder what Barry Mann, who had his own brief singing career, thinks of Manilow, the man who stole his name plus “ilow.”) Manilow, for the record, would have killed it. Helen Reddy would likely have done fine by it also. (This Patreon has already documented its appreciation of both Manilow and Reddy.) But even if, as per Rolling Stone, Helen Reddy could have sung it, she didn’t sing it, and she certainly couldn’t have sung it like Dolly sings it – all the praise in the past couple weeks has mostly focused on her songwriting, her charming personality and her philanthropy, but my god, what a voice. As I perused Dolly’s greatest hits, I was struck by her part “Islands in the Stream,” a song I’ve never been a huge fan of. (“I set out to get you with a fine-toothed comb”?) But the way she sings, “No more will you cry,” happy, silly, sad and wistful all at the time. She brings that same charm to “Here You Go Again,” a song about being swept away by a charmer against her better instincts, a complicated emotion that she sells effortlessly, both the lovestruck sweep and the anticipation of the loneliness to come. Only Dolly had the charm to pull that off; it is a tragedy that Dolly as an actress only made comedies, I think she could have broken some hearts in a real romance film.
Dolly wasn’t completely without input on the song’s production; her biggest contribution was the inclusion of a steel guitar – primarily to preempt criticism that she wasn’t country anymore, but it’s a beautiful touch regardless, playing slightly behind the beat to represent Dolly’s hesitation and impeding heartbreak. Steel guitar or not, though, “Here You Come Again” is first and foremost a pop song, in ways that even “9 to 5” or “Islands in the Stream” are not, covered in strings and flutes and bright, bouncy piano and other easy listening touches. In hindsight, it had to be. Ken Burns’s documentary Country Music uses “Here You Come Again” to soundtrack Dolly’s rise to superstardom, and what other song could he have possibly used? Only Dolly could have made “Here You Come Again” as big as it is, but Dolly needed the song even more than it needed her. Dolly, trashy and glamourous and sparkling even from the beginning, was indeed always too big for country music; how could she have continued without a big glamorous pop song of her own?
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