Classical Desolation: “All By Myself” by Eric Carmen

It’s odd how power pop, for all its alleged purity and perfection, never really became popular. Myself, I think it’s the charts’ loss, but the fact remains that when most people think of Alex Chilton they think of “The Letter” rather than Sister Lovers, to which “All By Myself” makes an unlikely companion. The song also reminds us of the age-old tradition of writing pop songs based on classical pieces; Barry Manilow had recently had a top ten hit with his Chopin adaptation “Could It Be Magic” and now it was the turn of Rachmaninoff.

Again it is instructive to listen to the full seven-minute-plus album version of “All By Myself” since the long piano interlude in the song’s middle was actually the first thing that came to Eric Carmen’s mind. Working backwards, he then figured that the second movement of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor – “Adagio sostenuto,” no less – would form a good basis for the song’s verses, while the chorus was informed by, but did not slavishly mimic, “Let’s Pretend,” a song which he had written for his old band the Raspberries in 1972.

The Raspberries should have been far bigger than they actually were; their 1974 swansong “Overnite Sensation (Hit Record)” went Top 20 in the States but despite rave reviews and blanket radio play here the song never caught on in Britain. When “All By Myself” happened Carmen was roundly condemned as a sellout, which is rather unfair; think of its haunted cloisters as the expression of someone who lived through and came through the sixties and everything they promised, just to find disillusionment and a nearly unutterable emptiness at the end. Twenty years later Celine Dion’s reading would make the source of the pain bleed vividly, but Carmen’s contained hurt still packs a gentle punch.

Date Record Made Number Two: 6 March 1976

Number Of Weeks At Number Two: 3

Records At Number One: “Love Machine (Part 1)” by The Miracles and “December, 1963 (Oh, What A Night)” by The Four Seasons

UK Chart Position: 12

Other Information: Carmen assumed that the music of Rachmaninoff was out of copyright. It was – but only in the USA. After negotiations, it was agreed that the Rachmaninoff estate would receive 12% of the royalties of both “All By Myself” and, from the same album, “Never Gonna Fall In Love Again,” which thematically was based on the third movement of the composer’s Symphony No. 2.

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