Eric Carmen – PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture

Raspberries – I Wanna Be With You

This song is for Song Lyric Sunday for Jim Adams’s blog. This week’s prompt is (drum roll please…) a forgotten band. I picked The Raspberries but also talked about Badfinger and Big Star.

I still remember the first time I heard this song on AM radio. I must have been around 7 or 8, walking into my sister’s wood-paneled room. It was playing on WMAK, a station I’ll never forget. The disc jockey, Coyote McCloud, was a legend in Nashville back in the early seventies—everyone tuned in to hear him. It’s funny how clearly I can recall that moment like it was just yesterday.

I wasn’t lucky enough to be a teenager in the 1970s, but whenever I listen to The Raspberries, it feels like I’m transported back in time. I can picture myself in 1973, driving my first car with their greatest hits blasting, feeling the freedom and excitement of the era. The music has a way of making it real.

I’ve always considered the top three power pop bands to be Big Star, Badfinger, and The Raspberries. Together, they captured everything that makes power pop great… soaring vocals, great melodies, and that perfect balance of guitar crunch and jangle. What an incredible time for the genre, with all three bands active at the same moment in history. They may not have found the level of commercial success they deserved, but their influence on music has been huge.

These bands didn’t just define power pop… they set the standard for what the genre could be. Badfinger and The Raspberries managed to crack the Top 20 a few times, but Big Star didn’t even get that far…which is nothing short of a crime. Bands like Cheap Trick, Tom Petty, KISS, REM, The Cars, and The Replacements owe them a lot. These three bands do pop up every once in a while. The Raspberries Go All The Way was in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, Badfinger’s Baby Blue was in the last episode of Breaking Bad, and Big Star’s In The Street was the theme song to That Seventies Show.

The Raspberries were more than just a band…they were a Cleveland supergroup, formed from the city’s best local acts. The lineup was indeed super… Eric Carmen as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist, Wally Bryson on lead guitar with his signature crunchy riffs, Jim Bonfanti on drums, and Dave Smalley on bass. Their sound was a seamless blend of their influences—The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks, and The Beach Boys—woven together into power pop perfection.

The Raspberries did have 7 singles to chart and 4 top forty hits with I Wanna Be With You being one of them. This song peaked at #16 on the Billboard 100 and #17 in Canada in 1973. It was the first single from their second LP, Fresh.^[It became their second-greatest US hit. They broke up in 1975 after releasing their album Starting Over. Eric Carmen wrote this song.

Their best-known song was Go All The Way which peaked at #5 in 1972.

Alex Chilton (Big Star): “I remember when I first heard the Raspberries, Big Star was in a van traveling around doing some dates and we heard Go All the Way on the radio, and we said, ‘Wow, those guys are really doing it!’ I thought that was a great song.”

I Wanna Be With You

If we were older we wouldn’t have to be worried tonight
Baby oh I want to be with you so bad
Oh baby I want to be with you
Oh yeah?
Well tonight tonight we always knew it would feel so right
So come oh baby, I just want to be with you

Someday’s a long time and we’ve been waiting so long to be here
Baby oh I want to be with you so bad
Oh baby I want to be with you
Oh yeah?
Well tonight tonight we always knew it would feel so right
So come oh baby, I just want to be with you

Hold me tight our love could live forever after tonight
If you believe in what you’re doing is right
Close your eyes and be still

Baby, oh I want to be with you so bad
Oh baby I want to be with you
Oh yeah?
Well tonight tonight we always knew it would feel so right
So come oh baby, I just want to be with you

Oh I want to be with you so bad
Oh baby I want to be with you
Oh yeah?
Baby I want to be with you so bad

…

Raspberries – Go All The Way

I wrote this for Dave’s Turntable Talk at A Sound Day. Be on the lookout for that series at A Sound Day. He has some interesting topics. This one was on One Hit Wonders.

This song has a mixture of The Who, Beach Boys, and The Beatles… a pretty good mixture! I’m cheating a bit…The Raspberries had 4 top 40 hits but this was the only top ten hit and the song they are most known for. The song starts off with a strong Who-like loud riff then continues on with hooks galore.

When people think of The Raspberries this is the song most think of. Personally, I always thought Overnight Sensation was their best song but this one is great and the masses agreed.

The song peaked at #5 on the Billboard 100 and #5 in Canada in 1972. This song was on their self-titled debut album released in 1972. The American and Australian versions of this LP carried a scratch-and-sniff sticker with a strong raspberry scent.

They were one of the 3 great power pop bands of the early 70s. Badfinger, Big Star, and The Raspberries. Out of those three, Badfinger was the most successful but all were good. Many alternative bands that followed would list all three or at least one of them as an influence. The Raspberries released 4 albums in total between 1972 and 1975. They broke up after their last album Starting Over (#143) and the great single Overnight Sensation only charted at #18. After you listen to Go All The Way…check out Overnight Sensation…it’s an epic song.

I moved to a different town when I was 8 and in a new school (we would move back later that year) we went on a field trip to some college. Thinking back, it was a small college and the students there put on a small show for us kids. After the show, they showed us the grounds and I remember Go All The Way booming out of a room. It’s funny how music can send you back to a place and I can remember the smell also.

Eric Carmen said he was inspired by The Rolling Stone’s performance of “Let’s Spend The Night Together” on the Ed Sullivan Show when Mick Jagger had to sing it as “Let’s spend some time together.”

This was before Eric Carmen went solo and started doing ballads and songs on soundtracks such as Dirty Dancing. Carmen hit it big solo but personally, I think his music with the Raspberries was the best he did.

This song appears in the 2000 film Almost Famous but was not included on the soundtrack. It did make the soundtrack to the 2014 film Guardians Of The Galaxy, which went to #1 in America and revived many ’70s hits. My son got the soundtrack mostly for this song.

Fans of the band included John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen. They did reunite in November of 2004 and toured shortly until 2006.

Eric Carmen: “I knew then that I wanted to write a song with an explicitly sexual lyric that the kids would instantly get but the powers that be couldn’t pin me down for.”

Eric Carmen: “I remember ‘Go All The Way’ vividly. The year was 1971. I was 21. I had been studying for years. I had spent my youth with my head between two stereo speakers listening to The Byrds and The Beatles and later on The Beach Boys – just trying to figure out what combinations of things – whether it was the fourths harmonies that The Byrds were singing on ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ – I must have worn out 10 copies of that first Byrds album listening to it over and over, and turning off the left side and turning on the right side trying to figure out why these certain combinations of instruments and echo and harmonies made that hair on your arms stand up. I did the same thing with Beatles records, and I tried to learn construction.

Go All The Way

I never knew how complete love could be
‘Til she kissed me and said

Baby, please, go all the way
It feels so right (feels so right)
Being with you here tonight
Please, go all the way
Just hold me close (hold me close)
Don’t ever let me go

I couldn’t say what I wanted to say
‘Til she whispered, I love you

So please, go all the way
It feels so right (feels so right)
Being with you here tonight
Please, go all the way
Just hold me close (hold me close)
Don’t ever let me go

Before her love
I was cruel and mean
I had a hole in the place
Where my heart should have been

But now I’ve changed
And it feels so strange
I come alive when she does
All those things to me

And she says
(Come on) Come on
(Come on) Come on
(Come on) Come on
(Come on)
I need ya (come on)
I love ya (come on)
I need ya (come on)
Oh, oh, baby

Please, go all the way
It feels so right (feels so right)
Being with you here tonight
Please, go all the way
Just hold me close (hold me close)
Don’t ever let me go no

Raspberries – Should I Wait

The Raspberries formed in the early 1970s when Eric Carmen and Jim Bonfanti envisioned a band that would emulate bands such as The Beatles, The Who, and The Beach Boys.

This song came off of the Side 3 album released in 1973. This song…well the way I would describe it is country tinged power pop. It was an odd and cool album cover. It was a die-cut of a basket of Raspberries, with the group’s name placed on top of the LP sleeve.

Three members wrote and sang songs. It wasn’t just Eric Carmen…This song was written and sung by Dave Smalley the bass player. This was their third album and they would end up releasing four studio albums.

The band consisted of Eric Carmen (vocalist/guitarist/bassist/pianist), Wally Bryson (guitarist), Jim Bonfanti (drummer), and Dave Smalley (guitarist/bassist).

Their last appearance as the original lineup was on The Mike Douglas Show in 1974. Shortly after… Bonfanti and Smalley both quit the band to pursue individual music careers. Michael McBride and Scott McCarl replaced them and shortly after Raspberries went on to produce their fourth and final album Starting Over…which yielded what could be their masterpiece… Overnight Sensation.

In 2004, the original four members of the group performed at Cleveland’s House of Blues. This resulted in a 2005 mini-tour. The Raspberries performed at other venues around the United States, with their final concert performance in Cleveland, Ohio at KeyBank State Theatre on December 14th, 2007.

Should I Wait

Don’t you know you’re gonna lose
If you love somebody that don’t love you?
You’ll believe him when he’s untrue
But I can’t bear seein’ him break your heart in two
I’ve let it happen much too long

Should I wait, hopin’ you’ll find out on your own?
It’s me who’s loved you for so long

If he hurts you with his lies
Don’t let it take too long to open your eyes
You’re gonna see through his disguise
But I can’t bear seein’ him break your heart in two
I’m tired of tryin’ to play it cool

Should I wait, hopin’ you’ll find out on your own?
The one you love is just a fool

If I had the chance I’d make you see
When you fall in love how it should be
A love that makes you sad can only turn out bad
So I’ll be hangin’ ’round until you’re free

Should I wait, hopin’ you’ll find out on your own?
It’s me who’s loved you for so long

Raspberries – Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)

This is my second song pick for Hanspostcard’s song draft. The Raspberries Overnight Sensation (Hit Record).

Bruce Springsteen: “Overnight Sensation (Hit Record) should go down as one of the great mini-rock-opera masterpieces of all time”

In the nineties I bought the Raspberries greatest hits. I listened with headphones to each song until I heard this one. I stopped and listened to it repeatedly. It’s one of those songs that goes beyond other songs…It is truly a pop-rock symphony. I was amazed that I never heard this before.

Overnight Sensation (Hit Record) is an epic, ambitious, grand, lofty, extravagant, and brilliant song from the Raspberries. They were swinging for the fences when they made this song and they hit it out of the park. It’s on the album Starting Over released in 1974.

Put some headphones on and listen to this completely to the very end… When I hear it, I think this is what it would sound like if The Who, Beach Boys, and Beatles made a song together…this would be it. Musically you have a little of everything. Sliding bass lines, tasteful guitar licks, great vocals, a sax solo that gives way to more lyrics as the song morphs into an AM radio sound… and then comes a solo piano.

Stay until the very end because they dupe you into a fake ending and the drums will come in as if the world is going to end. Then… a Beach Boys final huge crescendo wave will wash over you like a warm summer moonlit night. It’s a wall of sound of ecstasy that you wish would go on forever.

The song is about trying to make it in the music business. It’s Eric Carmen singing with desperation wanting a hit record on the radio. After this album, the Raspberries were no more. This was Eric Carmen at his absolute best before he went solo and became an ordinary pop singer. He would never try anything this ambitious again.

Certain songs we all know are timeless. In a perfect world this one deserves to be on that list. I don’t use the word masterpiece a lot but I would consider this song one. The musical arrangement is second to none in terms of arrangement, production, and harmonies.

Although “Go All The Way” was their big hit of their career…this one is in a different league and they never equaled it. Most people don’t know this song and it’s a musical injustice. I only hope more people discover it.

The three best power pop bands of the early to mid-seventies were Big Star, Badfinger, and The Raspberries. Badfinger were the most successful (and they paid dearly for it), Big Star wasn’t even known, and The Raspberries had one top ten hit with few very good minor ones. All three of these bands were too rock for pop radio and too pop for rock radio…in varying degrees they fell into the cracks of history… none of them had long careers.

John Lennon was said to be a fan of the group. He was producing Nilsson’s Pussycats at the same time The Raspberries were making this album at the Record Plant. John supposedly was blown away by Overnight Sensation.

The song peaked at #18 in the Billboard 100 and #22 in Canada in 1974.

Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)
Well I know it sounds funny
But I’m not in it for the money, no
I don’t need no reputation
And I’m not in it for the show

I just want a hit record, yeah
Wanna hear it on the radio
Want a big hit record, yeah
One that everybody’s got to know

Well if the program director don’t pull it
It’s time to get back the bullet
So bring the group down to the station
You’re gonna be an overnight sensation

I’ve been tryin’ to write the lyric
Non-offensive but satiric too
And if you put it in the A-slot
It’s just got to make a mint for you

I fit those words to a good melody
Amazing how success has been ignoring me
So long
I use my bread making demos all day
Writing in the night while in my head I hear
The record play
Hear it play

Hit record, yeah
Wanna hit record, yeah
Wanna hit record, yeah (number one)

Raspberries – Tonight —-Powerpop Friday

I saw this quote by a critic about this song: “Take one part Small Faces, one part Who, one part Beatles, mix, cook to a boil and let rock!”

I found this song on their greatest hits. I would highly recommend one of their greatest hits to anyone.

A powerpop group from Cleveland Ohio in the early to mid-70s. They were influenced by the Beatles, Small Faces, The Who and The Beach Boys. They had some of the same problems as Badfinger, being too hard for pop and too soft for rock. Badfinger was overall more successful but the Raspberries had some top 40 hits.

This song peaked at #69 on the Billboard 100 in 1973. Tonight was originally on their 3rd album called Side 3 that peaked at 128 in the Billboard Album Chart in 1973. Eric Carmen would go on to greater success as a solo performer but I never thought he topped what he did with the Raspberries.

Tonight

One, two, three, four
When you smiled at me
And I saw your eyes
All I ever wanted to be
Was in your arms tonight
You looked too young to know about romance
Oh, yes you did
But when you smiled, I had to take a chance
I had to take a chance and be with you

Tonight
I’ll be with you tonight
Tonight
You’ll love me too tonight
Woh baby, tonight

I’m making love to you
Woh, tonight
Bop-om-doo-doh-woh-mop-shoo
Woh, tonight
You’re gonna love me too
Tonight
Woh, tonight

I don’t know myself
If it’s wrong or right
All I know is what I can feel
So be my love tonight
You looked too young to know about romance
Oh, you know what I mean
But when you smiled, I had to take a chance
I had to take a chance and be with you

Woh, tonight
Won’t you let me sleep with you, baby
Woh, tonight
I just wanna make you feel good inside, baby
Woh, tonight
Let me feel the love that’s in you
Woh, tonight
Come on, come on, come on, come on
And let me
Come on, baby
Woh, tonight

The Raspberries

“Go All The Way” (1972 #5), I Wanna Be With You (1972 #16), Lets Pretend (1973 #35), and Overnight Sensation (1975 #18). They were too clean cut for rock fans to embrace. Matching suits and a teenybopper image. Unhip or uncool is what was many critics of that time wrote about them but their songs are melodic and fun.

Most bands have one song that is above the rest of their catalog. Many would probably say the Raspberries best song was Go All The Way but to me, it was Overnight Sensation. That song is their masterpiece. The song tells of the frustrations of trying to have a hit song on the radio with a heavy Who, Beach Boys, and Beatle sound.

After their album “Starting Over” in 1975 they broke up. If they could have stayed around a few more years they may have fit nicely with Cheap Trick, The Cars, The Knack, and Blondie.

Many artists list them as an influence and are fans such as KISS, Courtney Love, and oddly enough Bruce Springsteen and Axl Rose have mentioned them.

John Lennon was a fan of them and was in the studio when they made “Starting Over.”

Eric Carmen had a very successful solo career after the breakup but he stuck with pure pop in his music. He finally got the elusive hits he sang about in Overnight Sensation with All By My Myself, Never Gonna Fall in Love Again, and some songs off of the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. I never thought they were as good as his Raspberries songs.

The Raspberries reunited in 2004 and did a tour. I have watched some video of one of the shows and they were really tight.

If you want to get a cd that covers their career get “The Raspberries Greatest”

The original members were

Eric Carmen (Volcalist, Guitar, Pianist, Bass)
Dave Smalley (Bass, Guitar)
Wally Bryon (Guitar)
Jim Bonfanti (Drummer)