“And then I met you darlin’, and you smiled at me, it was such a pretty smile…”
It’s a sad day when I select my music from stand up comedy. That’s where I stumbled upon this Lenny Williams
I first heard this track back in 01, at least I assume I did, truth is I can’t remember having heard it before July last year. In Kings, Harvey
Fast forward 10 years and I’m watching Kings again and I was in shock at the brilliance of the song, ‘I must have it!’ I gasped at the TV (really) after listening to a minute or so, and off I went in search of this most excellent number. Incidentally, my pet torrent site shut down ‘voluntarily’. Bastards! Where the hell am I supposed to get my bootleg mix tapes now? Selfish bastards! Moving on swiftly… After 2 weeks of trawling through the dark and scary corners of the internet, I found it, all 7 minutes plus of it.
Now I realise you buggers feel nothing for my tunes, and that’s ok, this isn’t some military boot camp, you can do whatever you damn well please in my house, as long as you don’t break shit, or steal from me. However, if you choose not to listen to this track, you won’t get to hear the brilliant monologue at 3:30, “…I watched television until television went off…”, right after he does his trademark “oh oh oh oh oh ooohhh…”, that which R Kelly has seemingly made his own. You’ll never hear Lenny sing about her smile, her pretty smile. Most important though, if you don’t listen then you won‘t have the foggiest clue what I’m on about here. Although, perhaps I’m being presumptuous in thinking you usually do. Perhaps.
Thing is, only after listening, really listening, to this track, did I finally understand why the crowd reacted the way they did. Assuming you’ve watched Kings, you know that when the song starts playing, people get up like there’s been a mass electrocution, yes? Grown ass men and women screaming and hollering, jumping up and down like it’s a bloody crusade and they’re testifying! Now the intro is so deceptive, you’d never guess how brilliant the song is, because it starts off like a nondescript 70’s song, slow and simple. Then 25 seconds in, “Girl you know I, I, I, I love you, no matter what you do…” What the? My reaction was, ‘Who is this man and when can I have his baby?‘ I figure any song that has “I, I, I, I…” cannot possibly be a crap song, I’m just saying… From the minute Lenny starts singing you sit up and notice, by the time he gives the lecture halfway through you’re already hooked. Hell, at 6 minutes, I was crooning like R Kelly, on my knees, arms outstretched and shit!
I’m dithering by the way.
I sat down intending to write about Whitney and her spectacular self-destruct, but what I want to say should probably not be said right now, speaking ill of the dead and what not. Besides, it’s not like I knew the woman is it? I don’t get to talk shit about someone I’ve never met. Unless of course they’re politicians, in which case the more shit I talk the better, but that’s beside the point. I have no opinion to offer on how she lived her life, instead I’m going to tell you how she was always a part of mine.
Growing up in the 80’s, certain musicians became the soundtrack to my generation, especially those of us whose only entertainment was VoK/KBC, and our parents’ old Skeeter Davis and Boney M records. The likes of MJ, Prince, Alexander O’Neal , Anita Baker Luther , Madonna , SOS Band, Billy Ocean, Pointer Sisters, Kool and the Gang Whitney Houston... For some reason
Thanks to my TV/radio addiction growing up, I knew the words to “Saving all my love” before I even sat my first national exam, well before I understood what love she was referring to. The fact that I was singing a mistress‘s song to her married lover was completely beyond me, in retrospect probably a good thing no? By the time she was (not quite) dancing with a shadow on a wall in “I’m your baby tonight”, my hormones were on the ascendancy, I was that hot chick on the motorcycle with the triangular curly bob. Then came ‘The Bodyguard’ and the combination of Kevin Costner Whitney made me a stalker. This makes so much sense now. Actually, what she really made me was bloody murderous, that “I will always love you” song drove me up the wall! Country songs should just remain country songs.
With the “Exhale/Shoop” song, brown lipstick became my obsession, that and short hair, courtesy of Angela Basset. Its in ‘Waiting to Exhale’ that I first heard Whitney (in character) say ‘fuck‘, and, contrary to threats from mother and pastor alike, she didn’t immediately burst into flames. I tell you it changed my life. We slowly drifted apart after that, there was the brief reunion for “My love is your love” but it wasn’t the same, I was all grown up, I’d moved on to Alanis, Sheryl Crow, such like rocker chicks. I suspect there was also some bitterness on my part, I blamed her for Bobby ’s demise, the man hadn’t done a decent song since the brilliant Teddy Riley
When I left campus and started working at some backstreet operation (almost literally), I discovered bootleg music from a strange place called the internet, this was back in the day when we all had the same music, and everyone had at least one Donell Jones album on their computer. I was working with a nerdy IT fellow who just happened to be an aspiring DJ, and he gave me Whitney ’s first album, “Whitney ”. Sweet Jesus ! The songs I’d sung when I was a youngling, a barely teen and so naïve, suddenly took on new meaning, I finally got it. See I always knew she could sing like no other, but I never understood what she was singing about, how could I? I was too young. Listening to her first album as an adult, a woman, it felt like coming full circle. It felt like coming home. When she sings “You give good love”, and she sings the hell out of that song, not only do I know what she means, I feel it. 15 odd years later, I fell in love with Whitney all over again.
The plan was to put up songs from her early albums, before the smack and ganja, back when her voice was so clear you could hear her lungs contract. Unfortunately, after being subjected to non-stop ‘Remembering Whitney’ on radio for the past week, I think not. I’m starting to develop a nervous tic in my left eye brought on by “The greatest love of all”, even typing it has me twitching. Hence Lenny Williams
“Girl you know I, I, I, I love you…”
