Only Love
A Hall and Oates deep cut featuring John Oates
As these things have a way of happening, John Oates has been making a lot of appearances in the news lately.1 However, what triggered this post was a conversation with Jackie R. in the comment section of her post on Kiss on My List. It had me go back and listen to the Change of Season2 album again, one of my favourites. 3
This song has stayed in my head since, which is interesting to me because it hasn’t been one of the standout tracks on the album for me. But listening to the album this time with an ear to convincing Jackie to listen to it, I heard the beginnings of John Oates’ current blues/roots music in it. He co-wrote it with London-based musician Joe Cang4 and sings lead.
His marriage to model Nancy Hunter had broken up just before recording this album and that had to be on his mind while writing it.
Try to find my tears within me
Try to be a logical man
Tryin' to help the world around me
But I'm so lonely I don't know if I can
It’s a song that everyone can relate to and I think that’s why it resonates with me now. Enjoy your song of the day!
Both he and Daryl Hall are releasing albums soon and both have said the partnership is officially over during press for those releases.
Also the title of Oates’ autobiography.
It was the last album before the duo went on a 7 year hiatus and had them again ahead of the curve, featuring an acoustic sound just as MTV launched Unplugged.
Hard to find out more information about this partnership except that Cang would collaborate with the duo on a song on their comeback album Marigold Sky. I don’t know how much of the song belongs to each man. On a bio for Cang he says he wrote the song for the duo so how Oates fits into this remains a mystery.
Not familiar with this song or the album. Somehow it passed by me in 1990! Very different and original sound for Oates.
Always love to hear people’s deep cuts from lesser known albums as it’s often a fun place to start with an artist’s catalog. Outside of Abandoned Luncheonette (and their greatest hits album) I’ve never listened to any of their individual albums so will give this one a spin.