"I've Never Been to Me" is a
ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...
, written and composed by
Ron Miller and
Kenneth Hirsch and made popular via a recording by American singer
Charlene. Although its original release in 1977 barely registered on the
''Billboard'' Hot 100, its re-release in 1982 hit #3 in the US and earned her a
gold certification
Music recording certification is a system of certifying that a music recording has shipped, sold, or streamed a certain number of units. The threshold quantity varies by type (such as album, single, music video) and by nation or territory (see ...
in Australia,
where it held the #1 spot for six weeks. In addition, the song topped the charts in Canada (4 weeks), Ireland (3 weeks) and the United Kingdom.
It was also a top ten triumph in Norway, Belgium, New Zealand and the Netherlands and became
Motown
Motown Records is an American record label owned by the Universal Music Group. It was founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on June 7, 1958, and incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of ''moto ...
's first top ten hit by a white female solo singer.
Content
The song is best known as lyrically formatted for a female vocalist and as such is addressed to a desperate wife and mother who would like to trade her prosaic existence for the
jet set
In journalism, jet set is a term for an international social group of wealthy people who travel the world to participate in social activities unavailable to ordinary people. The term, which replaced "café society", came from the lifestyle of tra ...
ting lifestyle the song's narrator has led. The narrator alludes to various
hedonistic
Hedonism refers to a family of theories, all of which have in common that pleasure plays a central role in them. ''Psychological'' or ''motivational hedonism'' claims that human behavior is determined by desires to increase pleasure and to decre ...
episodes in her life, concluding that while she's "been to paradise", she's ultimately failed to find self-fulfillment, expressing this with the line, "I've never been to me." There is also an alternative set of lyrics for the song formatted for a male singer, in which the narrator is an elderly man, destined to die the very next day, begging for a dime for a cup of coffee, addressing a younger man who is "raising hell" the way the old man used to do.
Early versions
Charlene had recorded "I've Never Been to Me" in 1976 for her debut album, the self-titled ''
Charlene'', a Prodigal release (P6 10015S1), and the ballad contained a controversial spoken section. ''Songs of Love'' (P610018S1) came out six months later in 1977 and was essentially a re-issue of ''Charlene'', having a slightly different track listing but retaining "I've Never Been to Me" without the spoken bridge. In October 1977, "I've Never Been to Me" became Charlene's third consecutive single to stall in the lowest part of
''Billboard's'' Hot 100. From the ''Charlene'' LP, the first single, "It Ain't Easy Comin' Down", went to No. 97 in March 1977 (and No. 23 on AC). The following single, "Freddie" from the ''Songs of Love'' album, made it to No. 96 on the Hot 100 in May 1977 (and No. 40 on AC). The Hot 100 peak of "I've Never Been to Me" in its original formal release without the monologue was No. 97, and while Charlene's preceding two singles had both reached ''Billboard''s
Easy Listening chart, "I've Never Been to Me" failed to appear on that chart.
The earliest version of "I've Never Been to Me" to be released was by
Randy Crawford
Veronica "Randy" Crawford (born February 18, 1952) is an American jazz and R&B singer. She has been more successful in Europe than in the United States, where she has not entered the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 as a solo artist. However, she has ap ...
which appeared on her 1976 album ''
Everything Must Change
''Everything Must Change'' is the debut studio album by singer Randy Crawford released in 1976 on the Warner Bros. label.
Background
It was recorded and mixed at Hollywood Sound Recorders except " I'm Easy" and "I've Never Been To Me", which, a ...
''. Besides Charlene's version, 1977 also saw the release of versions of the song by
Nancy Wilson and
Walter Jackson: Nancy Wilson's version served as the title track of her June 1977 album release and was the first version of the song to be released as a
single
Single may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
* Single (music), a song release
Songs
* "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004
* "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008
* "Single" (William Wei song), 2016
* "Single", by ...
, reaching No. 47 on the ''Billboard''s
R&B chart
The Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart ranks the most popular R&B and hip hop songs in the United States and is published weekly by ''Billboard''. Rankings are based on a measure of radio airplay, sales data, and streaming activity. The chart had 100 p ...
, while Walter Jackson's version – featuring the lyric formatted from a male perspective – was featured on his ''I Want to Come Back as a Song'' album released in the spring of 1977.
In February 1978, a mid-tempo recording of "I've Never Been to Me" by
Mary McGregor
Mary MacGregor (born May 6, 1948) is an American singer. She is best known for singing the 1976 song "Torn Between Two Lovers", which topped the ''Billboard'' charts for two weeks.
Career
MacGregor was born May 6, 1948, in St. Paul, Minneso ...
was released as the advance single from her ''
In Your Eyes
IN, In or in may refer to:
Places
* India (country code IN)
* Indiana, United States (postal code IN)
* Ingolstadt, Germany (license plate code IN)
* In, Russia, a town in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast
Businesses and organizations
* Independ ...
'' album: this single reached #29 on ''Billboard''s Easy Listening and Canada's Adult Contemporary charts.
A modified version of MacGregor's version was sent out to radio stations with the possibly controversial line in the final chorus, "I spent my life exploring the subtle whoring that costs too much to be free", amended to "I thought my heart would wait but I learned too late that it costs too much to be free". Also in 1978,
Marti Caine
Marti Caine, born Lynne Denise Shepherd (26 January 1945 – 4 November 1995), was an English comedian, actress, dancer, presenter, singer, and writer, who first came to national attention by winning the television talent show ''New Faces'' in 1 ...
recorded "I've Never Been to Me" for her album ''Behind the Smile'' from which it was issued as a single, and
Mary Roos
Mary Roos (born Rosemarie Schwab on 9 January 1949) is a German singer and actress.
Biography 1949-1970
Schwab was born in Bingen. At the age of nine, she recorded her first song "Ja die Dicken sind ja so gemütlich" as ''Die kleine Rosemarie ...
recorded the German rendering by lyricist
Michael Kunze
Michael Rolf Kunze (born 9 November 1943, in Prague) is a foremost German musical theater lyricist and librettist.
He is best known for the hit musicals '' Elisabeth'' (1992), '' Dance of the Vampires'' (1996), ''Mozart!'' (1999), ''Marie Antoine ...
entitled "Doch mich selber kenn ich nicht" ("But I do not know myself") for her album ''Maryland''.
Revival
In 1982,
Scott Shannon
Michael Scott Shannon (born July 25, 1947) is an American radio disc jockey who hosted the morning show for WCBS-FM in New York City from 2014 to 2022 as well as ''Scott Shannon Presents America's Greatest Hits'' which is syndicated nationally wi ...
, a disc jockey at Tampa radio station
WRBQ-FM
WRBQ-FM (104.7 FM, "Q105") is a commercial classic hits music formatted radio station in Tampa, Florida. Owned by Beasley Broadcast Group, its studios are in St. Petersburg while its transmitter is in Palm River-Clair Mel.
History Top 40 (197 ...
, began playing the "I've Never Been to Me" track off the ''Charlene'' album (with the original recitative), and response from local listeners was such as to motivate Shannon, a former Motown employee, to alert Motown president Jay Lasker to the track's hit potential. Lasker located Charlene who, discouraged by the poor performance of her 1977 Motown releases and by the label's decision not to release a second album she had recorded, had left the music industry and met and married an Englishman, subsequently accompanying him to his native land and taking a job at a sweetshop in
Ilford. Lasker personally telephoned her with the invitation to re-sign with Motown Records to facilitate the re-release of her "I've Never Been To Me" single, which occurred in February 1982.
The ''Billboard'' Hot 100 dated March 6, 1982, showed "I've Never Been to Me" by Charlene debuting at No. 84 – already 13 places higher than its 1977 peak. It subsequently rose as high as No. 3 on the Hot 100, where it held for three weeks during May and June, prevented from further chart movement by "
Don't Talk to Strangers" by
Rick Springfield
Richard Lewis Springthorpe (born 23 August 1949), known professionally as Rick Springfield, is an Australian-American musician and actor. He was a member of the pop rock group Zoot from 1969 to 1971, then started his solo career with his debut ...
and "
Ebony and Ivory
"Ebony and Ivory" is a song that was released in 1982 as a single by Paul McCartney featuring Stevie Wonder. It was issued on 29 March that year as the lead single from McCartney's third solo album, ''Tug of War'' (1982). Written by McCartney ...
" by
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One ...
and
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris ( Judkins; May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, Pop musi ...
. The song ranked at No. 38 on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100-year-end chart for 1982. The track had even greater impact internationally, attaining No. 1 status in Australia (six weeks), Canada (four weeks), Ireland (three weeks), and the United Kingdom (one week).
"I've Never Been to Me" also afforded Charlene a top ten hit in Belgium (Flemish Region) (#7), the Netherlands (#7), New Zealand (#5), and Norway (#5). In 1982, Charlene's "I've Never Been to Me" was also a top 10 hit on
''Billboard'''s
Adult Contemporary chart
The Adult Contemporary chart is published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine and lists the most popular songs on adult contemporary radio stations in the United States. The chart is compiled based on airplay data submitted to ''Billboard'' by sta ...
(#7) and a minor
C&W chart crossover (#60).
When the song was revived in 1982, the version being played on radio was the take with the monologue (from the Prodigal LP ''Charlene'', P6 10015S1); this version was the one Motown re-issued, not the ''Songs of Love'' single version from 1977 (Prodigal, P610018S1). The song was never actually re-recorded by Charlene in 1982.
Music video
A music video was made for the song's 1982 reissue. The video was filmed on location at
Blickling Hall
Blickling Hall is a Jacobean architecture, Jacobean stately home situated in 5,000 acres of parkland in a loop of the River Bure, near the village of Blickling north of Aylsham in Norfolk, England, Norfolk, England. The mansion was built on the ...
, Norfolk, England and features Charlene wearing her actual wedding dress from her marriage to Jeff Oliver, whom she had married at the time of the song's revival.
Legacy
As Charlene was unable to successfully follow up the success of "I've Never Been to Me" – her only subsequent Hot 100 entry "Used to Be" (a duet with
Stevie Wonder
Stevland Hardaway Morris ( Judkins; May 13, 1950), known professionally as Stevie Wonder, is an American singer-songwriter, who is credited as a pioneer and influence by musicians across a range of genres that include rhythm and blues, Pop musi ...
) got as high as No. 46 – she remains a high-profile
one-hit wonder
A one-hit wonder or viral hit is any entity that achieves mainstream popularity, often for only one piece of work, and becomes known among the general public solely for that momentary success. The term is most commonly used in regard to music p ...
. On the 2002
VH1 special ''
100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders'', "I've Never Been to Me" was ranked at No. 75. In the program, it was stated that her entry "expresses the post-'70s hangover."
Chart history
Weekly charts
Nancy Wilson
Charlene
Mary MacGregor
Charlene
Year-end charts
Certifications and sales
Other versions
A Spanish language recording of "I've Never Been to Me" entitled "Nunca He Ido A Mi" was recorded by Charlene and was one of two
B-side
The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record compan ...
tracks featured on the re-release of "It Ain't Easy Comin' Down" – the followup to the 1982 release of "I've Never Been to Me" – in its UK format (in other territories "It Ain't Easy Comin' Down" featured only the one B-side "If I Could See Myself").
Charlene re-released the song in the form of a dance remix via download music in 2008.
Worst song lists
*The song was listed as the No. 3 worst song of all time in Jimmy Guterman's 1991 book "The Worst Rock n' Roll Records of All Time: A Fan's Guide to the Stuff You Love to Hate."
*A 2006
CNN
CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by the M ...
poll listed the song as the No. 4 worst song of all time.
References
External links
*
{{authority control
1976 songs
1977 singles
1982 singles
Randy Crawford songs
Charlene (singer) songs
Nancy Wilson (jazz singer) songs
Mary MacGregor songs
Number-one singles in Australia
Irish Singles Chart number-one singles
RPM Top Singles number-one singles
UK Singles Chart number-one singles
Songs written by Ron Miller (songwriter)
Songs written by Ken Hirsch
Motown singles
Pop ballads
1970s ballads