Songoftheday 11/23/22 - It took me by surprise when I saw you standin' there, close enough to touch breathin' the same air...

 

 

"What I Really Meant To Say" - Cyndi Thomson

from the album My World (2001)

Billboard Hot 100 peak: #26 (one week)

Weeks in the Top-40: 8

 

Today's song comes from singer/songwriter Cyndi Thomson, who grew up and went to school in Georgia before moving to Nashville to pursue a country music career. Eventually she was signed by Capitol Records, where she recorded her debut (and what would be her only) album, My World, which came out in the summer of 2001. Cyndi had a hand in writing eight of the songs on the record, including the lead single "What I Really Meant To Say". Co-written by Thomson with industry veterans Tommy Lee James and Chris Waters (the latter the brother of country singer Holly Dunn), the song has Thomson running into an old flame, and after saying things were great and he leaves, confesses to herself how badly she feels that they're gone. There's no explanation on what had happened between them, just the regret in her heart, and that's fine, that's how people really process emotions like this. It doesn't matter who was at fault, the hurt is still there. As for the record itself, the pennywhistle is a nice addition, and Cyndi's vocals stay at a low simmer mid-range, almost to the point where I'm yelling "just belt it out!" at the speakers (I wonder what a more expressive single like Martina or Faith would do with this song). But it definitely was enough for country radio, giving her the biggest debut hit from a female singer in ages, one which carried over into the Hot 100 top-40...

"What I Really Meant To Say" became Cyndi's first and only hit on Billboard magazine's Hot 100, reaching the top-40 in September of 2001. The song was a huge success in Nashville, spending three weeks at #1 on the Country Songs chart and becoming one of the ten biggest hits in that genre in 2001. The My World album, released in July of that year, climbed to #81 on the Billboard 200 sales tally, and #7 on the Country Albums list, going on to sell over a half million copies.

Despite the warm reception of her debut single, Thomson's follow-up, the ballad "I Always Liked That Best", frustratingly stopped right below the genre's sweet spot of the top-20 at #21. The third release, "I'm Gone", was one of the few on the album not written by Cyndi (rather co-written by personal fave Kim Richey), and the Sheryl Crow-like number stopped at #31 on the Country Songs chart in the spring of 2002.

 

Not long after that, however, Cyndi announced she was quitting the music business, soured by the machinations and settling down to raise a family. She did end up writing some material, one of which, the poignant "Life Ain't Always Beautiful", ranks in my mind as her best, was recorded by Gary Allan and became a top-5 country radio hit in 2005.  Perhaps she would've been better served being a writer and demo singer. In 2018, she reappeared to record a few of her songs acoustically. 

 

(6/10)

(Click below to see the rest of the post)

Here's Thomson performing the song live for Country Music Television (apologies for the bad sound)...

And lastly, this is Cyndi's acoustic version from 2018...

I'll be off this tomorrow for Thanksgiving, then I'll be back Friday with a British duo that rode a Mitsubishi for their one-off pop success.