Ladies Man

Songwriter Saturday 6 Today’s selection is a cover of a song I wrote in 1980, called “Ladies Man”. I have already expressed how shy I was as a young man. I was the type to call someone I had an interest in romantically, and as soon as the phone would ring, I might lose nerve and hang up! Stupid, yes, but… This song encapsulated those feelings and expressed some frustration about the world of “dating” in the 80’s for me. In the summer of 1980 there was a song writing festival, called the American Song Festival, which invited entrants to record their songs on cassettes, mail them in (with the associated entry fee) and you might possibly win and a major star (to be named later) would record your song and release it. If your song didn’t win, they would record their criticism on the reverse side of the cassette to help you become a better songwriter in the future. I sent in 3 entries if I remember correctly, and this is the only one that came back with encouraging tips, and actually said it had “commercial possibilities.” You can hear the influence of Stephen Bishop quite a bit, as I was listening to him a lot at the time. It wasn’t unusual to get together with others to strum and sing, and I remember a co-worker, Craig Underhill, singing some sweet harmonies on this one. This song also elicited my second “Fan letter” as well. My friend Kirk (of Kirk’s Farm) brought a young lady by my apartment on Polk street to hear some songs. I think her name was Donna? Tann (I think her dad owned Tann Electric) , but not completely sure. She really liked this song, and a few weeks later I got a letter from her expressing that. At the time she was living in McAllen, Texas and worked for radio station, KRIO. She mentioned some A&R people from Arista Records that she had talked to, and they expressed an interest in hearing that tape from the contest. I sent it, but you know how the music industry goes…never heard anything more. For me, the music was always just a means to express myself, and not truly any desire to “become” somebody. When you write something that others also enjoy, that in itself feels like victory to me. When contemplating how to create a video for this track, I happened to be watching one of my favorite holiday movies Serendipity. John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale (2001). So using only two scenes from the movie, I created this video rendition of (I’ve never been too much of a) Ladies Man. Music and lyrics © 1980 Steve Brennan. Video clips from Serendipity property of Miramax Films and Tapestry Films. No copyright infringement intended.