We're All Alone

"We're All Alone" is a song written by Boz Scaggs, which became a 1977 top-ten hit for Rita Coolidge in the US and the UK. Scaggs introduced it on his 1976 album Silk Degrees. The song was first a hit for Frankie Valli. Scaggs included it as the B-side of two of the four single releases from that LP, including "Lido Shuffle".

"We're All Alone"
Single by Frankie Valli
B-side	"You to Me Are Everything"
Released	August 1976
Length	3:59
Label	Private Stock
Songwriter(s)	Boz Scaggs
Producer(s)	Bob Gaudio

"We're All Alone"
Song by Boz Scaggs
from the album Silk Degrees
A-side	"What Can I Say", "Lido Shuffle"
Released	November 1976
Length	4:12
Label	Columbia
Songwriter(s)	Boz Scaggs
Producer(s)	Joe Wissert

Boz Scaggs personnel

• Boz Scaggs – guitar, lead vocals
• Fred Tackett – guitar
• Louis Shelton – guitar, acoustic guitar
• David Hungate – bass
• Jeff Porcaro – drums
• David Paich – arrangements, piano
• Sid Sharp – string conductor and concertmaster
• Horns – Tony Terran, Vincent DeRosa, Jim Horn, Paul Hubinon, Dick Hyde, Plas Johnson, Tom Scott, Bud Shank

Frankie Valli version

A heartfelt ballad which closed Silk Degrees, "We're All Alone" garnered attention soon after the album's March 1976 release. Frankie Valli had a single version from his Valli LP which reached #78 U.S. in August 1976 (#74 Cash Box, #27 Adult Contemporary; Canada #73 Pop, #36 AC).[1]

Other early versions

The Walker Brothers - one of Scaggs' formative influences[2] - cut "We're All Alone" for their Lines album; the track had an October 1976 single release in the UK where the Frankie Valli version had a single release that July; the Walker Brothers' version did reach #22 in the Netherlands in August 1977 a month before the Rita Coolidge version reached the Dutch charts.

In March 1977, the version by the Three Degrees - recorded for the album Standing Up For Love - was a UK single release meaning that the Rita Coolidge version of "We're All Alone" which reached UK #6 that summer was the fourth UK single release to feature the song as an A-side. That same month, C&W singer LaCosta had a single release of "We're All Alone" in both the US - where it charted at #75 C&W - and also the UK where the track was the B-side of a remake of "I Second That Emotion". Also, in the spring of 1977 a version by Bruce Murray was an airplay item in Canada.

Scaggs' own version of "We're All Alone" was the standard B-side of his international single release "Lido Shuffle" including its release in the US and UK where "Lido Shuffle" respectively charted at #11 and #13. However, in Australia Scaggs' "We're All Alone" was issued with "Lowdown" as the flip to become a double A-side chart entry reaching #54 in the autumn of 1977, the only evident instance of the Scaggs original charting.

In a 1976 interview with Creem magazine, Scaggs stated that Michael Jackson had cut versions of "We're All Alone" and "What Can I Say" — both from Silk Degrees — but if so, these tracks have never been released.[3]

Rita Coolidge version

"We're All Alone"
Artwork for U.S. vinyl release
Single by Rita Coolidge
from the album Anytime...Anywhere
B-side	"Southern Lady"
Released	June 1977
Length	3:38
Label	A&M
Songwriter(s)	Boz Scaggs
Producer(s)	David Anderle
Rita Coolidge singles chronology
"(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher" (1977) "We're All Alone" (1977) "The Way You Do the Things You Do" (1977)

The Rita Coolidge version of "We're All Alone" was featured on the album Anytime...Anywhere released in March 1977.

Coolidge would recall: "When I was with A&M Records, it was like a family. I would visit Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, and it was a very open, communicative group of people. One day I was in Jerry Moss' office and he said that the Boz Scaggs album Silk Degrees was in a million homes and there was a song on it that was perfect for a woman to sing. He said, 'It's called "We're All Alone" and as he's not doing it as a single, I think you ought to record it.'"[4]

The original lyrics of "We're All Alone" include lines "Close your eyes ami" and "Throw it to the wind my love". Coolidge sings these lines as "Close your eyes and dream" and "Owe it to the wind my love".

Although the first single off the US release of Anytime...Anywhere was "(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher", "We're All Alone" was the first single taken off the album in the UK where it reached #6 in August 1977 when "(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher" was moving up the US Top 10; that same month "We're All Alone" reached #6 in Ireland. In September Coolidge's version of "We're All Alone" entered the Dutch charts where it would peak at #15 (in August the Walker Brothers' version had reached #22 on the Dutch charts).

The second single from Anytime...Anywhere in the US, "We're All Alone" there ascended to #7 that September: the track also received enough airplay in the C&W market to reach #68 on the C&W chart.

"We're All Alone" was the first of Coolidge's two Adult Contemporary #1 hits[5] - the second would be "All Time High" - and after "(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher" was her second single to be certified gold for US sales of 1,000,000.

In December 1977, "We're All Alone" entered the charts in Australia to remain for 16 weeks with a #32 peak - the original Boz Scaggs version had been a minor Australian hit in the autumn of 1977 reaching #54 in a tandem charting with its flip "Lowdown".

In New Zealand, Coolidge's "We're All Alone" charted with a #34 peak in February 1978.

Reportedly the concurrent availability of both the Boz Scaggs original and the Coolidge version of "We're All Alone" at radio stations (and their versions having the same key and tempo) moved some disc jockeys to splice together the two tracks into one unofficial duet (a trend that had begun two years prior with the two concurrently released solo versions of "You Don't Bring Me Flowers"), in spite of the fact that the spliced duet version of "We're All Alone" was already receiving rave reviews by fans and DJs alike. However, unlike "You Don't Bring Me Flowers", which featured Columbia Records label mates Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond, Skaggs and Coolidge were signed to competing record companies which, for whatever reason, declined to allow the two to remake the song as an official, separate single.

Coolidge remade "We're All Alone" for her 2005 jazz release And So Is Love: Elysa Gardner of USA Today opined that Coolidge "brings a new wistfulness and knowing to her own hit of yore...proving that good interpretive singers, like fine wine, improve with age." [6]

Chart performance

Weekly charts

Frankie Valli

Chart (1976)	Peak position
Canadian RPM Adult Contemporary	36
Canadian RPM Top Singles	73
U.S. Billboard Hot 100[7]	78
U.S. Billboard Adult Contemporary	27
U.S. Cash Box Top 100	74

Rita Coolidge

Chart (1977–78) Peak position Australia 32 Canadian RPM Adult Contemporary[8] 1 Canadian RPM Top Singles[9] 5 Ireland 6 The Netherlands 15 New Zealand 34 UK 6 U.S. Billboard Hot 100[10] 7 U.S. Billboard Adult Contemporary[11] 1 U.S. Cash Box Top 100[12] 5 U.S. Record World[13] 4

Year-end charts Chart (1977) Rank Canada RPM Top Singles[14] 62 Chart (1978) Rank Canada RPM Top Singles[15] 159 U.S. Billboard Hot 100[16] 98

Other versions

Other versions of "We're All Alone" have been recorded by Beat Crusaders, Maj Britt ("Alene Her"), Cecilio & Kapono, Petula Clark ("On est tout seul"), Anne Cochran, Ben Cramer ("Gelukkig Zijn"), Linda Eder, René Froger, Monica Forsberg, René Froger, Bob James, Salena Jones, Kiri Te Kanawa, Engelbert Humperdinck, Arja Koriseva ("Me Kaksi Vain"), Kisu Jernström ("Niin yksin oon"), Steve Lawrence, Liesbeth List ("Vertrouwd Gevoel"), Johnny Mathis, Reba McEntire with Jose e Durval ("Solo yo, sola tu") in Spanish, and in Portuguese (“Coração Vazio”) (José y Durval appearing with their original stage name Chitãozinho e Xororó), Natalia, Newton, Mary O'Hara, Natalia Oreiro and also Manolo Otero ("Estamos Todos Solos"), Päivi ("Kun Luonain Oot"), Zsa Zsa Padilla, Pieces of a Dream, Rico J. Puno, Patty Pravo ("Da Soli Noi"), Kurt Ravn, Collin Raye, Gilberto Santa Rosa ("Impaciencia"), Doreen Shaffer, Stutz Bear Cats, Masayoshi Takanaka, The Walker Brothers, Susan Wong, Yulia (singer), and Emil Chau (1992).

The 1997 release California Dreamin', a project comprising a cappella versions of soft rock classics credited to the West Coast All Stars, featured "We're All Alone" with a lead vocal by Bill Champlin: the other members of the West Coast All Stars were Jason Scheff, Bobby Kimball and Joseph Williams.

In 2005 bilingual singer Angela Aki of Japanese and Italian-American descent released a version of "We're All Alone" with her own Japanese lyrics retaining one verse in the original English.

Japanese rock band Beat Crusaders did a cover of this song.

A Dutch version (Gelukkig zijn) exists by Ben Cramer.

See also

• List of number-one adult contemporary singles of 1977 (U.S.)

References

1. RPM Adult Contemporary, October 9, 1976
2. "Dark Star 9-6/77". Beautifulboz.com. Retrieved 3 May 2009.
3. "The Buzz on Boz". Beautifulboz.com. Retrieved 2 May 2009.
4. "Country Music People 10/06". Spencerleigh.demon.co.uk. Retrieved 2 May 2009.
5. Whitburn, Joel (2002). Top Adult Contemporary: 1961-2001. Record Research. p. 64.
6. "USA Today-9/6/05". Usatoday.com. 6 September 2005. Retrieved 2 May 2009.
7. Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-1990 - ISBN 0-89820-089-X
8. "Item Display - RPM - Library and Archives Canada". Collectionscanada.gc.ca. Retrieved 2015-11-04.
9. "Image : RPM Weekly - Library and Archives Canada". Bac-lac.gc.ca. Retrieved 2016-10-13.
10. Joel Whitburn's Top Pop Singles 1955-1990 - ISBN 0-89820-089-X
11. "Adult Contemporary Music Chart". Billboard. 1977-11-12. Retrieved 2016-10-13.
12. "Cash Box Top 100 12/17/77". Tropicalglen.com. 1977-12-17. Retrieved 2016-10-13.
13. "Songs from the Year 1977". Tsort.info. Retrieved 2016-10-13.
14. "Item Display - RPM - Library and Archives Canada". Collectionscanada.gc.ca. Retrieved 2015-11-04.
15. "RPM Volume 29 No. 26, September 23, 1978 - RPM". Retrieved 17 December 2009.
16. "Top 100 Hits of 1978/Top 100 Songs of 1978". Musicoutfitters.com. Retrieved 2015-11-04.

External links

• Song Lyrics
• Listen to "We're All Alone" on YouTube (Frankie Valli)
• Listen to "We're All Alone" on YouTube (Rita Coolidge)