Songoftheday 12/7/12 - I saw you at the Beechwood Cafe, you looked at me & then you looked away...

Barry Manilow - "Some Kind Of Friend"
from the album Here Comes The Night (1982)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #26 (two weeks)
Weeks in the top-40: 7

Today's Song of the Day is by Barry Manilow, whose career was still chugging along in the early 80s; in the spring of 1982 his cover of the Four Seasons' "Let's Hang On" made the top-40, and in the fall his take of British rockabilly singer Shakin' Stevens' "Oh Julie" did the same. In November of that year, Barry released his twelfth studio album, Here Comes The Night, and placed yet another song in the top-40, his version of the classic Cats showstopper "Memory".

For his second single from that album, Manilow released one of his own songs, "Some Kind Of Friend", co-written with long-time collaborator Adrienne Anderson (who also co-wrote "Could It Be Magic"). It tried its best to fit in with the more rock/new wave moods that were dominating radio...

"Some Kind Of Friend" continued Barry's rule on the adult-contemporary chart, making it to #4 (his best showing since 1981's "Somewhere Down The Road"), while hanging around the top-40 for almost two months. It also was big in Canada, peaking at #13 and becoming his biggest hit there since 1979's "Copacabana"), and just missing the top-40 in Britain. However as the pop music world was drifting away from Barry's style of music, he would have one last hurrah with some help from Meat Loaf's songwriter Jim Steinman.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


...and here is Barry performing the song live...

Up tomorrow: she shares the name with the next Olympic city.