When I was 12, my mom and I went to see Barry Manilow at Boston Garden. It’s not important whose idea it was. Looking back, I remember–well, not a whole lot, actually. A big old orchestra. A great many lovelorn ballads. And an old-fashioned showman who knew how to work an audience. “I’m not gonna sing some of the old songs tonight,” Manilow told the crowd, setting off a terrible panic and not a few boos. “I’m gonna sing ’em all!”
It’s been a very long while since I listened to Manilow. Twenty years, maybe. Still, I recently received his new, sky-blue greatest-hits disc, “Ultimate Manilow,” and have been, to quote the singer, tryin’ to get the feeling again. Manilow has been uncool in certain circles–OK, many circles … OK, most circles–for ages. But, unlike virtually everyone and everything else in the recycletron that is our culture, his uncoolness has never quite made him cool. My sense is that his fans love him because they love him and not because he’s a kitsch icon, though, frankly, it’s hard to imagine anyone listening to “Copacabana” these days unless they’re on X. What’s great about Manilow is that, for a singer and pianist who lives in the land of Big Emotions, he’s actually sort of subtle. He knows he’s there to serve the song, like Tony Bennett, not to torture it with gonzo vocalizing, like Mariah Carey and Celine Dion. Sure, Manilow can hold a note like nobody’s business, but he doesn’t wave it up and down and all around like it’s a rubber ball and he’s a schoolkid playing keep-away. “Ultimate Manilow” sounds better than I expected all these years later. Manilow’s lyricists are nowhere near as idiosyncratic as Elton John’s sidekick Bernie Taupin–and, as a result, nowhere near as good–and his orchestras tend to sound generic. But even those weaknesses are touching in a way: Manilow, as a great many of his love songs suggest, really is going it alone.
Manilow sings best, and most often, about longing for lovers who are gone–either temporarily or for good. I listened to him years before I got any action whatsoever, so I suspect that his music appealed to me because I was longing for longing itself. My girlfriend hadn’t dumped me; she just didn’t exist. Same difference, more or less. “Weekend in New England,” arguably the tune in which Manilow longs hardest and best, begins with a simple piano figure and a carpet of strings. The lyrics, if you really think about them, are sorta daffy, so the fact that the tune still works so well is a testament to how convincingly Manilow sells it: “Last night, I said goodbye/ Now it seems years/ I’m back in the city where nothing is clear.” Are you following this? It’s only Monday morning and already he’s heartbroken. By the chorus, he’s beating his breast full-force: “And tell me/ When will our eyes meet/ When can I touch you/ When will this strong yearning end/ And when will I hold you again?” Jesus, guy, you’re going to see her on Friday. She didn’t die or anything. Relax.
Manilow has always been a better piano player than he lets on. He doesn’t show off, like Elton John or Billy Joel do on occasion (or Tori Amos does constantly). He just lays out the chords and gets down to the business of soul-baring. “Mandy” opens with a piano melody that calls some Beethoven sonata or other to mind, and “Could It Be Magic” starts with chords borrowed from Chopin. Both tunes still fly for the same reason that “Weekend in New England” does: they’re simple and, if you suspend your cynicism, they’re touching. You believe that Manilow knows a thing or two about heartache, even if you suspect he’s never really been in love with anyone named Mandy. The only tunes on “Ultimate Manilow” that ring false–or hollow, anyway–are the frisky upbeat numbers like “Copacabana,” “Bandstand Boogie” and “It’s a Miracle.” (Elton John must have had “Miracle” rooting around in his subconscious when he wrote “Philadelphia Freedom,” but that’s cool: Manilow’s “This One’s For You” owes an obvious debt to “Your Song.”) Other tracks have passages that seem dated, but fortunately they’re not bad enough to break whatever spell Manilow is trying to cast. “I Write the Songs,” which the singer famously did not write, has a bridge with clumsy lyrics (“Oh, my music makes you dance/ And gives you spirit to take a chance”) and a backing track straight out of “Sgt. Pepper’s”-era Beatles (the little coronet solo was lifted directly from “Penny Lane”). Still, almost 30 years later, the tune is hard to resist.
Manilow’s still at it in 2002, of course. Not long ago, he released a “Rent”-ish concept album about a Manhattan apartment building, titled “Here at the Mayflower,” and he’s currently on the road, preaching to the long-since converted. Manilow is jazzier and more musically adventurous these days, but he’s still reeling in the feelings. His steadfastness makes me feel sort of guilty for abandoning him circa 1979–not guilty enough to listen to “Can’t Smile Without You” ever again, but still. “I made it through the rain,” Manilow sang a couple of decades ago in what may well have been a reference to his critics. “I kept my world protected/ I made it through the rain/ I kept my point of view/ I made it through the rain/ And found myself respected by others who/ Got rained on too/ And made it through.” Not everything on “Ultimate Manilow” will soft-rock your world, but what can you do but open your door to a guy who’s spent 30 years singing in the rain?
