Monday Morning’s Earworm №128

Copacabana (At the Copa) by Barry Manilow

What is an earworm?

It’s a snatch or a snippet, a captured fragment, a line or two, or maybe a bit more, from a cultural reference point that stays in your head, that keeps bubbling up accompanying your day.

It’s part of the language of your landscape that stays in your mind, whether it’s one single line, a couplet or maybe a whole verse, from a poem or song, or a part of a speech from a play, or a quote from a book, or something you heard somebody say, that won’t let you go.

Sometimes it won’t involve what we call language in the everyday. It could be purely a musical phrase that plays on your mind, on a loop that follows you through day and night.

That’s what an earworm is. And so is this…

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Copacabana (At the Copa) by Barry Manilow

UK Chart peak: DNC US Chart peak: №8

The Downside of the Double-A-Side

In my mind, I expected this to have been hanging around the UK charts at the time, high in the single-digit placings. But no, it had no placings. According to the OfficialCharts.com website, it didn’t chart at all in the UK until 1993, and then it was a remix.

Unfortunately, “Copacabana (At the Copa)” was hampered by being one half of a double-A-sided single. Because it was its partner song, on the other A-side, “Somewhere in the Night”, that was preferred by the DJ’s of the time.

It makes sense, as it’s in the tradition of the pop ballad that has always been popular. Think of songs from the 70s such as “Song Sung Blue” by Neil Diamond, “Forever and Ever” by Demis Roussos, “Don’t Give Up on Us” by David Soul and “The Theme From ‘The Love Boat’” by Jack Jones.

All are classic 70s ballads. And all existed somehow separately from the thrusting storms and grooving vibes of the more youthful inhabitants of the pop charts of the era.

But that had been true since rock’n’roll arrived in the early to mid-50s. The cultural awakening of ‘youth’ in terms of having a culture of their own, distinct from older generations, essentially created two charts within one.

I should say two markets. The charts didn’t separate, like a cell sub-dividing. The rise of youth as a financial force in the music industry created two markets. The music industry could now cater to the offspring as well as the parents traditionally targeted.

“Somewhere in the Night” fit the more mature demographic like a glove. “Copacabana (At the Copa)”, on the other hand, played like a show tune. And not one that people already knew either.

This made it more of a gamble, and less of a “Somewhere in the Night” sure thing. Show tunes were no strangers to the charts, but here in Britain the double-A-sided nature of the single doomed “Copacabana (At the Copa)”.

DJ’s had an easy choice: one side sounded more likely than the other to appeal to a larger audience. Show tunes, being a smaller niche, were therefore a bigger gamble in the drive for listeners than a straightforward pop ballad.

About the Song of This Morning’s Moment

Manilow boasted in another of his hits that he was the man who wrote the songs that made the whole world sing. Ironically, he wasn’t the only man who wrote “Copacabana (At the Copa)”.

Some songs have only one parent. The same person writes both words and music. “Copacabana (At the Copa)” was one of those with multiple parents. It was also conceived in more than one place.

As Wikipedia tells us:

“The song was inspired by a conversation between Manilow and Sussman at the Copacabana Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, when they discussed whether there had ever been a song called “Copacabana”.

After returning to the U.S., Manilow — who, in the 1960s, had been a regular visitor to the Copacabana nightclub in New York City — suggested that Sussman and Feldman write the lyrics to a story song for him”.

The lyrical story that Sussman and Feldman wrote, and Manilow put music to, was a cinematic pop gem. It was a love story and a tragedy told in music and words in just under four minutes for the radio edit — in just under 6 for the album version.

Lola, the showgirl, loved Tony the bartender. Rico, the villain of the piece, tries to force himself on Lola. There’s a struggle between Tony and Rico. There’s a gun. There’s an ending you’ll have to listen to, if you don’t know it already, because I’m not supplying any spoilers.

Even Now, the Parent Album

Even Now was Barry Manilow’s fifth studio album, and his first to break into the UK album charts, peaking at №12. It did even better in America and Australia, where it got to numbers 3 and 8, respectively. It would end up certified 3x platinum in the US and silver in the UK.

It was recorded at A&M Studios in Hollywood, California, and Mediasound in New York, between July and November 1977. It would be released in February 1978 on Arista Records, and Barry Manilow would compose the music to 8 of its 12 tracks.

Post Script

While writing this, I stopped halfway to pop out and do some grocery shopping. Waiting at the bus stop, a tune began to take hold, you know the way earworms do?

That’s no surprise under the circumstances.

The surprise is that it wasn’t “Copacabana (At the Copa)”.

It was another song from Even Now that I’d not thought about in years. I can only put it down to reading track listings this morning for putting it on repeat on the internal jukebox…

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Recommended Listening:

Even Now, Barry Manilow, Arista Records, 1978

Don’t forget to tell me in the comments what you thought of this week’s earworm.