Songoftheday 12/22/12 - You can get lucky baby you can get high, sometimes it's better just to try and get by...

Robert Ellis Orrall with Carlene Carter - "I Couldn't Say No"
from the EP Special Pain (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #32 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 3

Today's Song of the Day is by Boston-area singer/songwriter Robert Ellis Orrall, who started by opening for acts like U2 and the Kinks, and released his first major-label debut album in 1981. After that didn't go anywhere, an EP of songs was put out the following year, including a collaboration with Carlene Carter, daughter of June Carter and therefore stepdaughter to the Man In Black himself Johnny Cash. That song, "I Couldn't Say No", written by Orrall and produced by Roger Bechirian, who also helmed Carlene's concurrent album C'est C Bon and worked with her husband at the time, Nick Lowe (of "Cruel To Be Kind" fame)...

The song became each singer's first and only top-40 hit, though both went on to have a bigger career in country music. Orrall's debut single, "Boom! It Was Over", made the top-20 in 1993, while Carlene took three different songs to #3 on the country list between 1990 and 1993.


Up Tomorrow: Fee thinks the girl's hot.