by Kevin Burton
My wife asked me a question, but her question made me ask more questions.
This was around Valentine’s Day, and I wanted to write about it right away, but I didn’t get there. Missed my window. But since our anniversary is now only three days away, voila, another window.
“What is that song…still the one…” she asked me.
Well this made my mind go two places. “Is it a fast song or a slow song,” I asked.
“I don’t know…” Jeannette said.
Our music conversations are often like this. It’s rare when I don’t know which artist is playing on a favorite song. It’s rare when Jeannette does know.
“OK, is there a man singing lead on it, or a woman?”
“A man,” she said.
Then I had my answer. And herein lies a tale of two songs with similar titles that are way, way high up on my favorite songs of all time.
The one she was asking about is “Still The One,” by Orleans. It’s one of the catchiest songs of the 70s. ABC used it not once but twice to hawk it’s new fall programming. It became the band’s highest-charting song when it reached number 5 in 1976.
I got my phone to play the song, which was fun for us and a win for me. My phone (Siri) doesn’t always play the song I ask for, but might play a song from the same artist or the same era. Does your phone do that?
“Still the One” contains the lyric “sometimes I never want to see you again.” Aside from that I embrace the song for us. We’ve had our disagreements over the years, but I have never felt like “never want to see you again” or anything close to that.
The better line for us is “we’re still having fun and you’re still the one.” But the whole song is a celebration of love, shared history, commitment and good times.
After the last chord faded from that song, I requested “You’re Still The One,” by Shania Twain.
Bingo! Got the song I wanted on the first try.
“Oh yeah, I like that one too,” Jeannette said.
“You’re Still The One” is a very different song. The Orleans song is a rollicking, bump-up-the-volume tune. Twain’s song is a slow dance song, but it also nails the feeling.
It has a spoken introduction that I could live without. But it has an underdog, prove-the-world-wrong narrative that I just love.
“They said, I bet they’ll never make it
But just look at us holding on
We’re still together, still going strong, mmm
(Still the one)
You’re still the one I run to
The one that I belong to
You’re still the one I want for life
Another favorite lyric from that song: “look how far we’ve come my baby.”
How far indeed.
Jeannette and I dated for five years before we tied the knot, because of me. My parents’ marriage was a disaster. In retrospect I can see God his hand on it though because things could easily have been much worse. But that was the example of marriage I had and I didn’t want to replicate it.
One day in my old third-story apartment, I actually asked Jeannette, “what would a marriage look like,” as if we would be trying to seamlessly merge two companies. Can’t remember what she said. But that’s where my head was.
Thank God I got over that and that she was patient enough to wait for me.
“You’re Still the One” was number two on the Hot 100 for an astonishing nine weeks in 1998 according to the Billboard Book of Number 2 Singles, blocked from the top by “Two Close” by Next and “The Boy Is Mine” by Brandy and Monica, two songs I am not familiar with.
Anyway, those are two of the songs we may be playing Tuesday on our 14th wedding anniversary.
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