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11 Days Of Tanya Tucker - bub110 Changes

Here we are spending time in the world of Tanya Tucker as we head through day ten of the 11 Days Of Tanya Tucker - this time around there are changes galore - Tanya is head long into a new decade, she changes record labels, she changes her personal life and she changes her producer - oh and she names her new album Changes. So let's look at it shall we?


bub110 Tanya Tucker – Changes
December 11, 2007
Original Release: January 1983
Arista #9596

The early 80’s seemed to have been hard on our girl, the whole Glen Campbell fiasco blew up all over her world, the critics seemed to have come up with a whole washed out idea for her and she didn’t get renewed by MCA Records after what I imagine they thought were dismal sales for her last few albums. Now I don’t claim to know all the details but frankly I never understood the hoopla, I mean Tear Me Apart may not have had any hit singles and I can see why people may have told her to go back to country but the album did hit #33 on the charts on its own, while she then took back the charts by releasing two top ten singles in a row and though the album Dreamlovers and its follow up didn’t chart on the top 40, they were both in the top 50. Perhaps they just expected more out of Tanya.

Whatever the reasoning or lack there of, Tanya held her head up high and recorded a single for the new country branch of Arista Records in late 1982 – the single ended up with both sides hitting the country top 100 – the A side, the rollicking rock a billy of “Feel Right” hit #10 while the ballad on the B side “Cry” hit #77. Because of the success of the single around October of 1982, Tanya was granted an album all her own for Arista – what sweet charity.

Changes found our girl working with David Malloy who is one of the good producers who tends to mix pop and country together in a unique and often entertaining blend, he’d go on to do Rosanne Cash’s Rhythm & Romance and he worked with Dolly Parton on a few albums, and here he works with our girl.

The album was released in January 1983 and included both the A and B side single that had already charted and then threw on a few more interesting cuts. The fast songs are all rollicking good times full of life while her ballads punch through just like they always have.

My ultimate favorite on the entire album is “Until You’re Mine” another in a rock-a-billy flavor, the song is awesome. Her voice is amazing, the melody gets your toes and fingers a tapping and the whole thing makes you want to sing along – “There’s something baby that you don’t know/ and I hope it doesn’t show/ I’ve spent a whole lot of time/ and I’ll spend a whole lot more until you’re mine…” with Tanya’s hiccupy throaty vocals driving forward we hit the melodic chorus – “until you’re mine/ I won’t have time to mind..I’ve got a lot of love hidden away/ and that’s just where it’ll stay/ until you’re mine…” I frickin’ love this song – you can listen to it at the bottom of this post.

“Too Long” is in a similar vein which is probably why it’s my second favorite track on the album – again Tanya is pining for some man’s affections – only this time she’s already had him and he’s long gone. My favorite line is the opener (which is happily repeated as the third verse as well) – “I spend the night in my easy chair/ it’s the only thing that’s easy there…”

If you were to analyze the album and it’s lyrics you may come to the conclusion that Tanya was nursing a pretty big broken heart – after all, this is after her career seemed to have been falling apart and her time with Glen Campbell had ended in much heat and anger. Songs like “Heartache And A Half”, “Cry” all have the theme of love gone bad, but so do a lot of country songs so I could just be stretching.

Another of my favorites has the broken hearted theme going for it and it just tore me apart when I heard it – I loved it so much – “I Don’t Want You To Go” is excellent, written by Bruce Roberts and Allee Willis who wrote some of the best songs of the 80s including “Neutron Dance” and even “I’ll Be There For You” (okay those are just off the top of my head) and the song has some excellent lyrics – “and heroes die when they ignore the cause inside/ but they learn from what’s left behind/ and fight for something else/ and so it goes/ that we have both learned to go…” and the chorus is great with Tanya just ripping into it – “and from the start/ maybe we were trying too hard/ it’s crazy cause it’s breaking our hearts/ things can fall apart/ but I know/ that I don’t want you to go…” Aww.

One of the more interesting covers for Tanya to do is “Shame On The Moon” and I’m not sure what year Bob Segar really recorded it – it could’ve been later than this January 1983 release but I doubt it – but it really has always been his song, so imagine my surprise to find out he didn’t write himself. In fact the song was written by Rodney Crowell who was married to one of my other all time favs Rosanne Cash. What a small world and what a really good song.

I’ve always liked the sentiment in the song but I don’t think I ever really paid attention to all the lyrics until I heard this version by our Tanya. With lines like, “Til you’ve been beside a man/ you don’t know what he wants/ you don’t know if he cries at night/ you don’t know if he don’t…” With the turmoil that had been Tanya’s life the previous couple of years, you have to wonder if this insightful ditty into the mind and soul of a man, sung by a woman, was a way for her to express her enlightenment or still yearning questions regarding such a volatile relationship and man as she has said Glen Campbell actually was…. Or maybe she just liked the song.

“Baby I’m Yours” was the third single released from Changes and it too has a bit of the melancholies running through it – “baby I’m yours/ and I’ll be yours til two and two make three/ yours until the mountains crumble to the sea/ in other words yours til eternity…” It’s a sweet little ditty that actually did chart at #22 on the singles chart making it the second top 40 from the album.

The title track is another ballad but this time she’s not only pondering about her love gone wrong but actually taking steps to make sure she’s living through it and going on with her life – “Changes/ I’m gonna have to make some changes/ now that I know what the game is/ I know that I would only lose/ no matter what I do/ and the first change that I’ll make is gonna be you…”

Changes, the single nor the album really burned up the charts or radio but they weren’t disappointments either – the single hit #41 on the country charts and the album hit #47 on the album charts in the country genre so it wasn’t like the album just stalled and no one paid attention to it. But for whatever reason it may be – Tanya’s lack of enthusiasm or Arista’s or even Tanya just wanting to take a much needed break – Arista and Tanya parted company after Changes and she would take the next two years off of recording – making the years 1984 and 1985 the only years she hadn’t had an album of some sort out since she first started back in 1972.

Tanya Tucker - Changes (bub110)
Track List:
01. Cry 02. Shame On The Moon 03. Until You're Mine 04. Baby I'm Yours 05. I Don't Want You To Go 06. Heartache And A Half 07. Changes 08. Feel Right 09. A Thing Called Love 10. Too Long

and just for you - check out these brilliant little pieces from Changes:

Tanya Tucker - Until You're Mine
Tanya Tucker - Too Long
Tanya Tucker - I Don't Want You To Go
Tanya Tucker - Shame On The Moon

Download entire album and artwork:
TANYA TUCKER - CHANGES

And don't worry if you feel Tanya got a bum rap for this album or the few before it, they are great albums and you can like them no matter what the sales might've suggested; and should you worry that the next two years Tanya was absent and everyone said she was washed up was the end for our girl - our last day in the 11 Days Of Tanya Tucker will prove just how wrong they were for as we come to an end, Tanya was just getting started (again)....

Labels: 11 Days Of Tanya Tucker, Changes, David Malloy, Feel Right, Tanya Tucker

posted by swivek @ 8:26 AM