Carole Bayer Sager - I'd Rather Leave While I'm in Love

 

The tendency to list-making amounts to an affliction. Who cares what the Top 6 are or who the best is. At the bottom of such recondite activity must be such an emptiness inside oneself that one needs to establish some kind of identity by associating oneself with whatever length of litany one supposes does the job.

But, like fourth place in the Olympic Games, there are always tremendous performers who don't get a medal. In some ways, though, I'd rather be unlucky and not remembered than be vaguely celebrated by a bronze medal.

Carole Bayer Sager didn't make it onto my big Perfect Day of Pop Radio, Playlist or Wake Up, Maggie, whichever of them it is called. Not because it wasn't good enough but because eventually one has to draw the line somewhere and the schedule looked full up.

Given the sentiment expressed in I'd Rather Leave While I'm in Love, Carole might not have minded. It doesn't matter, does it.

She was a bit oddball with her waterbed that leaked and map of Mozambique but when I had my 7-inch singles -and why, oh, why did I ever see fit to unload such history for mere cash- I played this much more.

You might think she overdoes the vulnerable bit but there was rarely a song, a poem or much else that expressed contentment. Why would one take the time to say as much if one was enjoying oneself. It would only imply that one wasn't at other times.

It does that the other way round. Yes, it was great while it lasted and it's only afterwards that it can be appreciated.