"It's Only the Beginning" is a song by Australian singer-songwriter

Deborah Conway Deborah Ann Conway (born 8 August 1959) is an Australian rock singer-songwriter and guitarist, and had a career as a model and actress. She was a founding member of the 1980s rock band Do-Ré-Mi with their top-5 hit "Man Overboard". Conway pe ...

. It was released as the first single from her debut

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings (e.g., music) issued on a medium such as compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl (record), audio tape (like 8-track cartridge, 8-track or Cassette tape, cassette), or digital distribution, dig ...

, ''String of Pearls'' (1991), and peaked at number 19 in Australia in August 1991. At the

ARIA Music Awards of 1992 The Sixth Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards (generally known as the ARIA Music Awards or simply The ARIAs) was held on 6 March 1992 at the World Congress Centre in Melbourne. Hosts were international guest, Julian Lenno ...

, the song was nominated for four awards: Single of the Year and Song of the Year, losing out to

Yothu Yindi Yothu Yindi (Yolŋu Matha, Yolngu for "child and mother", pronounced , natively ) are an Australian musical group with Australian Aboriginal, Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal members, formed in 1986 as a merger of two bands formed in 1985 – a wh ...

's "

Treaty A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between sovereign states and/or international organizations that is governed by international law. A treaty may also be known as an international agreement, protocol, covenant, convention ...

", and Breakthrough Artist – Single, losing out to Baby Animals' "

Early Warning An early warning system is a warning system that can be implemented as a Poset, chain of information communication systems and comprises sensors, Detection theory, event detection and decision support system, decision subsystems for early identi ...

", while

Richard Pleasance Richard Arnold Pleasance is an Australian rock musician and producer. He was a founding member of Boom Crash Opera on guitar, bass guitar, vocals and as a songwriter in 1985; they released three albums before Pleasance left in 1992. Their hit Au ...

was nominated for Producer of the Year but lost to

Simon Hussey Simon Cyril Hussey (born 7 July 1960) is an Australian multi-instrumentalist, songwriter-arranger, record producer and audio engineer. In 1984 he formed Cats Under Pressure on keyboards with David Reyne (ex-Australian Crawl) on vocals and Mark G ...

Background

The song was written by

and American songwriter

Scott Cutler Scott Michael Cutler is an American songwriter, musician, record producer, and music executive. As a member of the alternative rock band Ednaswap, he co-wrote " Torn" which was covered in 1997 by Natalie Imbruglia. Her recording became the wo ...

. When the song was first completed, Conway said she felt "embarrassed", lamenting to her former

Do-Re-Mi "Do-Re-Mi" is a show tune from the 1959 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical ''The Sound of Music''. Each syllable of the musical solfège system appears in the song's lyrics, sung on the pitch it names. Rodgers was helped in its creation by long-time ...

bandmate Dorland Bray: "It's so happy, I can't cope, what am I doing?". Together, they rewrote the song. "I tried to cloak it, disguise its happiness," Conway recalls, but she finally gave in to the joy of it. "The recorded version is the original lyric without the de-happifying of it."

Track listings

7-inch, CD, and cassette single # "It's Only the Beginning" # "Deborah Conway's Nightmare #347"

Charts

Cover versions

Beccy Cole Beccy Cole (born Rebecca Diane Thompson, 27 October 1972), also known as Beccy Sturtzel, Rebecca Diane Albeck and Bec O'Donovan, is an Australian country music singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She has released ten studio albums, w ...

covered the song for her 2010 album '' Preloved''.

References

1991 singles 1991 songs Mushroom Records singles Songs written by Scott Cutler {{1990s-pop-song-stub