Songoftheday 5/6/13 - Ive been trying for hours just to think of what exactly to say...

Barry Manilow - "Read 'Em And Weep"
from the album Greatest Hits Volume II (1983)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #18 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 10

Today's Song of the Day is by the soft-rock king of the 70s, Barry Manilow, who by 1983 may not have been as big of a presence on pop radio, but still was placing singles on the charts, with his album Here Comes The Night giving him two more top-40 hits with his version of  "Memory" from Cats and the more pop-inflected "Some Kind Of Friend". Also, he successfully toured Europe, and in the meantime, his record company put out a second hits collection, and it included three new songs on it. One of them became Barry's final top-40 single (so far) on the Hot 100.

"Read 'Em And Weep" was written by epic songsmith Jim Steinman, who originally gave it to then-beleaguered long-time collaborator Meat Loaf for the sequel to his classic Bat Out Of Hell album, Dead Ringer. The single went nowhere..

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


Barry's version was produced by American Idol mentor Jimmy Iovine, and came with a video overdramatic enough for MTV...

Manilow topped the adult contemporary chart with the single, and reached the top-20 on the American and British charts. He would go on to have a couple more minor pop hits, the latest being "Hey Mambo" in 1988. Barry would have more success on adult-contemporary radio, where so far he's had three more top-10 hits, with his take on the Christmas classic "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" making it to #2 this past season.

And here's Manilow live in Japan...

Up tomorrow: a family group turns the clock forward.