Steve Forbert – Romeo’s Tune

I won this single at the county fair. From the title, I didn’t know what it was until  I played it. It was a hit single at the time. It’s a well-constructed song that never gets old to me. The song peaked at #11 in the Billboard 100, #8 in Canada, and #21 in New Zealand in 1979-80. It came off the great Jackrabbit Slim album.

I liked that album and also Alive on Arrival released a year before this one. Sometimes I hear songs and think…man I wish I could have wrote that song. This is one of them. It’s a pop song but a pop song that fits together perfectly. It has great hooks and the verses flow perfectly.

Steve has had a nice career but I really thought he would have been more known. He was one of the many who got stuck with the “New Bob Dylan” tag. I met him one afternoon. He is a nice guy…he sat behind me at a Rolling Stones concert in Vanderbilt Stadium on the Bridges to Babylon tour on Oct. 26, 1997. He was almost 20 years older but still had that boyish face. It surprised me because I was thinking…wait…he is Steve Forbert…why doesn’t he have better seats?

According to the Jackrabbit Slim album sleeve, the song was dedicated to the memory of the late Supreme, Florence Ballard, who died in 1976. Forbert actually wrote the song about a girl from his hometown of Meridian, Mississippi, rather than the Supremes singer.

John Simon produced this song/album. His credits include The Band’s Music from Big Pink and Janis Joplin’s Cheap Thrills. The song and album were recorded in Quadraphonic Sound studios, Nashville, Tennessee.

One tidbit I picked up that I would have never guessed. Steve was in Cyndi Lauper’s video “Girls Just Want To Have Fun.” I only halfway believed it but sure enough he plays Cyndi’s boyfriend in a tuxedo at the end.

Steve Forbert on Ballard: “that seemed like such bad news to me and such sad news. She wasn’t really taken care of by the music business, which is not a new story.”

Steve Forbert on being compared with Dylan: “You can’t pay any attention to that. It was just a cliché back then, and it’s nothing I take seriously. I’m off the hook – I don’t have to be smarter than everybody else and know all the answers like Bob Dylan.”

Romeo’s Tune

Meet me in the middle of the day
Let me hear you say everything’s okay
Bring me southern kisses from your room
Meet me in the middle of the night
Let me hear you say everything’s alright
Let me smell the moon in your perfume

Oh, Gods and years will rise and fall
And there’s always something more
It’s lost in talk, I waste my time
And it’s all been said before
While further down behind the masquerade the tears are there
I don’t ask for all that much I just want someone to care
That’s right now

Meet me in the middle of the day
Let me hear you say everything’s okay
Come on out beneath the shining sun

Meet me in the middle of the night
Let me hear you say everything’s alright
Sneak on out beneath the stars and run

Oh yeah, oh yeah yeah, oh yeah

It’s king and queen and we must go down now beyond the chandelier
Where I won’t have to speak my mind and you won’t have to hear
Shreds of news and afterthoughts and complicated scenes
We’ll huddle down behind the light and fade like magazines

Meet me in the middle of the day
Let me hear you say everything’s okay
Bring me southern kisses from your room

Hey hey, meet me in the middle of the night
Let me hear you say everything’s alright
Let me smell the moon in your perfume

Oh now, meet me in the middle of the day
Let me hear you say everything’s okay
Let me see you smiling back at me

Hey, meet me in the middle of the night
Let me hear you say everything’s alright
Hold me tight and love and loving’s free

Whoa yeah

Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

29 thoughts on “Steve Forbert – Romeo’s Tune”

  1. Ah, I really like this song. From winning his record to having him sit behind you at a Stones concert, I’d say you were destined to be a fan. That’s quite an encounter! He’s one of the artists I was lucky to see at the Glastonbury Festival. He sounded in 2013 just like back in 1979, when he released this.

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    1. I never saw him “live” so to speak…only met him which I will see him if I get a chance.
      It’s something pure about this song that I’ve always liked.

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  5. Brilliant song, it’s one of my favorite One Hit Wonders of the ’70s, or perhaps any decade. Very nice song through and through. Cool that you got to meet him, but how did you know? Man, your eye and memory must be fantastic if you recognized him all those years later from the record cover or video (?).

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    1. Oh I remembered him from when I saw him on different shows…and album covers. I had his first two albums….really good albums especially his debut.

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  6. Alive on Arrival is a great album with so many great songs: What Kinda Guy, Thinkin, You Cannot Win If You Do Not Play, Goin’ Down To Laurel, It Isn’t Gonna To Be That Way and more.

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    1. You have made me want to listen to that one again…I still own it and it’s been a while since I heard it.

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  8. Nice song, it rolls along well, good lyrics, great trivia. Who woulda thunk you would turn around at a gig and see someone sat behind you who could just as easily be be up on the the stage? Life is weird.

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  10. Great tune. It seems to me Steve Forbert is highly underrated. He only entered my radar screen in April 2020, when I covered a single from his then-upcoming covers album “Early Morning Rain,” which I subsequently reviewed. Other than his name and that album, I don’t know much about him. I’m currently listening to “Jack Rabbit Slim” and already love it after having listened to the first three tracks!

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  11. Max you’ve been sneaking around my record pile again. A bona fide CB top favorite guy. So many good tune. Love your personal connection to him and his music. A few takes on the old site on Steve.
    He was one of the guys I was going to suggest to you do a take on . Beat me to the punch. His latest release was a covers album. Did I say I love the guy.

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    1. Oh yea…he is so natural and down to earth…I say that a lot but that is what you like…down to earth.
      I picked the obvious one but hopefully some go looking for more.

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      2. I had his first two albums but that is all I’ve heard…not on purpose but it just turned out that way.
        Working on our project now.

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  15. Steve Forbert sat behind you at a Stones concert – great story – I remember him being really popular in the late 70s/ early 80s. Seemed to have just disappeared from the music scene.

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