这首“I've Never Been to Me”听来真享受啊，我查到原唱者是出生于1950年6月1日的美国R&B歌手Charlene Marilynn D'Angel，“I've Never Been to Me”是她的成名代表作。相关信息如下：
Charlene Marilynn D'Angelo (born June 1, 1950, Hollywood, California) is an American R&B singer best known as Charlene. She is known for her 1982 popular song "I've Never Been to Me", and is considered a one-hit-wonder.
Early recording career
She was christened by her mother under the name Charlene Marilynn D'Angelo, which was later shortened to Charlene for her record label. In 1973, Charlene signed with the legendary record label Motown Records under the name "Charlene Duncan", and released her first (and unsuccessful) single "All That Love Went to Waste" in January 1974. Three years later, she released a second album, It Ain't Easy Comin' Down, on Motown's Prodigal label. The release was credited to Charlene, although an album issued the same month had "Charlene Duncan" printed on the spine (and was, confusingly, titled Charlene). Another 1977 album, Songs of Love, was a repackaging of her song "I've Never Been to Me", which omitted a spoken bridge. She first released the single in 1977, but it initially had no success, reaching #97 on the pop charts.
Success of "I've Never Been to Me"
Charlene originally recorded "I've Never Been to Me" in 1976, and the single reached #97 on the USA's Hot 100 singles chart in 1977. When released again in 1982, the single reached #3 in the United States (US), and #1, by June 1982, in the United Kingdom (UK). The song has been her only Top 40 hit as of 2010.
Charlene did three versions of the song, the initial version of which was actually the second version recorded. Her original (and ultimately most popular) version includes an expanded bridge, in which the singer makes an impassioned comparison between the noncommittal "fantasy about people and places as we'd like them to be," versus the committed real love of a family.
In 1982, Tampa, Florida disc jockey Scott Shannon, then at WRBQ, started playing the song, by which time Charlene had moved to England and was working in an Ilford, Essex sweet shop. Audience reaction was impressive, resulting in the song's second release with the original spoken bridge by Charlene's label. The second release was a huge hit in England as well.
Rumours and misconceptions still abound about both content and story of the song. For instance, the line "I've been to crying for unborn children" may lend itself to interpretation as a reference to abortion, or to simply having chosen to spend life without having children. The version with the spoken bridge released to success in 1982 is alternatively rumored to be either a rerecording of a previous version, or to be the original recording.
Originally written from a male perspective, the song was rewritten for Charlene by Ron Miller. In Miller's version, the song is sung to a housewife who wishes to trade her ordinary life for the exciting life led by the singer. The singer describes some of her life's highlights in a bittersweet manner, as she wishes that someone had told her what she is telling the listener; she has learned too late what is truly important, as she now finds her life hollow and purposeless, having lost her true self: the "me" to which she has never been is the life she would have if she were not led astray by false notions.
When the song was first released in the US in 1976, Charlene's legal name was Charlene Duncan from her marriage to record producer Larry Duncan; by the time the song was released in 1982, her name was Charlene Oliver by dint of her subsequent marriage to Englishman Jeff Oliver. The single reached the top of the pop and adult contemporary charts that year, and the concurrent release of her album I've Never Been to Me, was also relatively successful. The single was one of the year's biggest hits, which became a standard in pop music. The video for the song was filmed at Blickling Hall, Norfolk, England and Charlene is seen wearing the very same wedding dress that she got married in.
"I've Never Been to Me" was featured as the opening song to the 1994 film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. The song is mimed onstage by two Sydney drag queens at the Imperial Hotel in Erskineville, Sydney, Australia. The latter performance includes a scene where a plastic "baby doll" (actually a rubber chicken) is hurled into the audience by one of the performing drag queens.
Subsequent recordings and releases
The following year, Charlene released another song, "Used to Be", a duet with Stevie Wonder that was penned by the writers of "I've Never Been to Me", which did not reach the pop top 40 chart and only reaching #46 on the pop charts. Both records were ranked the third and fourth worst records of all time by Jimmy Guterman and Owen O'Donnell in their 1991 book, The Worst Rock n Roll Records of All time. Not surprisingly, the Used to Be album, which accompanied its titular single, was not as successful as her previous album.
In 1984, Charlene released another album, Hit and Run Lover. Motown attempted to revamp her image in order to appeal to new audiences by highlighting her in a segment of the film The Last Dragon, which was under development by Motown's founder Berry Gordy. She and other Motown artists, including DeBarge and Vanity, were strategically placed in the film to appeal to the MTV craze of the time. Charlene's song "Fire" was used along with a sexy music video depicting her as a goddess. Although the film managed to improve some of the other artists' notoriety, Charlene's appearance in the film did not catch on and she was dropped from the Motown label the following year.
Because of her one big hit, Charlene became known as a one-hit-wonder in music. Charlene and her hit "I've Never Been to Me" was featured on VH1's 100 Greatest One-hit Wonders show, hosted by William Shatner in 2002. Her ranking on the list was #75. In 2006, "I've Never Been to Me" was released as one of the songs on SingStar Anthems, one of the popular SingStars. Charlene is set to re-release the song in the form of a dance remix via download music.
上面能够听到的应该就是Charlene的一个原唱(有三个原唱版本)，不知有没有张冠李戴？ |
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