"Up Where We Belong" is a song written by Jack Nitzsche, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Will Jennings that was recorded by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes for the 1982 film An Officer and a Gentleman. Warnes was recommended to sing a song from the film because of her previous soundtrack successes, and she had the idea for the song to be a duet that she would perform with Cocker. Jennings selected various sections of the score by Nitzsche and Sainte-Marie in creating the structure of the song and added lyrics about the struggles of life and love and the obstacles that people attempt to dodge. It was released in July of that year to coincide with the release of the film.
In 1984, the gospel duo BeBe & CeCe Winans recorded a religious variation of the song that received airplay on Christian radio stations, and their remake in 1996 earned them a GMA Dove Award. Various versions of the song have also been used to parody the final scene of the film on television shows such as Family Guy, The Simpsons, and South Park.
Background
On February 24, 1982, Joe Cocker performed "I'm So Glad I'm Standing Here Today" with the jazz group the Crusaders at the Grammy Awards.[4] Their collaboration on the song for a Crusaders album had earned a nomination that year in the category of Best Inspirational Performance.[5] Singer-songwriter Jennifer Warnes saw the show from home.[6] She had been a fan of Cocker's since her teens and at one time had a poster of him on her wall showing him performing at Woodstock,[7] and her love for the singer was still evident on this night many years later. "I was so moved, I was hollering out loud with joy, jumping up and down... After a difficult battle with drugs and alcohol, Joe was in total command once again. I knew at that moment that I would sing with Joe."[8]
Director Taylor Hackford was not given the budget for a new song to be produced for An Officer and a Gentleman.
Meanwhile, plans were being made for An Officer and a Gentleman to be distributed by Paramount Pictures, and studio executive Frank Mancuso was insistent upon having some kind of music to use to promote the film.[9] The director of the film, Taylor Hackford, was also interested in producing an original title song to help market it, but there was no remaining budget for such a recording.[10] He proceeded with the idea anyway, working with Joel Sill, who was head of music at Paramount at the time, without anyone else at the studio knowing that they were doing so.[10] The director consulted his friend Gary George to select a recording artist for the song.[10] George, the former head of publicity at Warner Bros. Records, had recently become a manager and suggested Warnes, who was a client of his.[10]
One of the six songs that Warnes had placed in the top half of the Billboard Hot 100 at that point was the number six hit "Right Time of the Night" from 1977.[12] Her soundtrack credits included the Oscar-nominated "One More Hour" from Ragtime and the Oscar-winning "It Goes Like It Goes" from Norma Rae,[11] which, like the Hackford film, also had a lead female character who worked in a factory. Hackford initially rejected the idea of Warnes singing a song for An Officer and a Gentleman "because he felt she had too sweet a sound,"[13] but Warnes met with Sill and discussed the possibility of doing so: "I suggested to Joel that I sing on that film in a duet with Joe Cocker."[11] Sill thought this was an interesting idea[11] but needed to convince Hackford of that. He said, "I discussed with Taylor, since the film centered really around Richard [Gere] and Debra [Winger] primarily, that maybe we should have a duet"[9] and that with Cocker and Warnes they would be "matching the characters to some degree. The dynamic between the two was the soft and the rough, that, to some degree, Debra Winger's character was very, very soft in the picture, even though she was in a rough environment. And Richard Gere's character, to some degree, was really a rough character until he was softened up by her."[9] Hackford thought the idea had potential[13] and now had another friend in the music industry to ask for a favor. Chris Blackwell was the owner of Island Records, and Cocker was now recording for Island. "I called Chris and said I want to do this, and he just, on the phone, said, 'OK, I'll make this happen.'"[14] What would initially convince Cocker to work on the project, however, was a small portion of the lyrics. He described it as "the 'Up' part, which is what made me realize it had hit potential. It was so unusual – that 'Love, lift us up... '"[15]
The last scene of the film brought the story to a happy ending, and Hackford wanted to have a song playing during the closing credits that would act as a reflection of the relationship portrayed and incorporate the score composed by Jack Nitzsche.[14] Nitzsche was having trouble writing a theme as he was scoring the film, and his longtime friend Buffy Sainte-Marie played him the melody for a song she had started working on called "Up Where We Belong".[16] Nitzsche wanted to have Sainte-Marie write the rest of the lyrics, but her background in folk music caused Sill and Hackford to look elsewhere.[9] Sill invited a lyricist whom he'd worked with before, Will Jennings, to the studio to view a rough cut of the film,[9] and that gave Jennings inspiration for the structure and lyrics of what became "Up Where We Belong". "And all through the film I was hearing these bits and pieces of music, and at the end of it I had it in my head, you know, how there was a song. I heard a chorus here and a verse here and a bridge there, and so when I finished, Joel was there, and I said, 'Joel, just give me all the music from it,' all of Nitzsche's music, ' 'cause I got an idea.'"[17] When Jennings presented Hackford with his demo, the director felt it was the perfect fit.[14]
According to Musicnotes.com by Alfred Music Publishing, "Up Where We Belong" is written in common time.[18] It is in the key of D major and sung in a vocal range from A3 to G5.[18] The lyrics "tell of the struggles of life and love and the obstacles in the way that we attempt to dodge."[11]
Recording and aftermath
I almost didn't want to record ["Up Where We Belong"]—the demo was dreadful!
Sill described Stewart Levine as the "record producer who we felt would give us the right interpretation of the song, add some soulfulness to it and also make it a hit record at the same time,"[9] but Levine was hesitant about traveling from his home in upstate New York to California for the job. He felt it would be worthwhile, however, because Jennings was involved.[19] When Jennings played the demo over the phone for him, Levine responded that it was "great",[17] and Warnes was certain "Up Where We Belong" would be a hit.[11] Cocker, on the other hand, described the demo as "dreadful",[15] despite his appreciation of some of the lyrics and the fact that Jennings was the lyricist on "I'm So Glad I'm Standing Here Today" and his more recent single, "Talking Back to the Night".
The same part of the song as heard on the hit record
Cocker wanted to make the recording by himself,[11] so Levine had Warnes record her vocals separately.[14] Cocker had taken a break from touring to fly to Los Angeles for the session, but when it came time to record he, as Hackford described it, "was terrified. He didn't even want to go into the studio. Stewart Levine had to go and talk him out of the hotel to get him there."[14] Cocker admitted, "I'd sat with the words in the afternoon but still hadn't remembered them, so we had to draw 'em up on big blocks of wood and stuff."[15] A recording was made where the two voices were spliced together,[14] but Warnes explained how persuasive their producer was in getting Cocker to agree to record the song alongside her: "Stewart Levine was gently insistent on the duet. Stewart understood that the contrast in our voices, the aural chemistry, would work. So Joe and I sang the song together. One or two takes, that was all."[11] Cocker came around to seeing a hit song once it was complete, saying, "I knew it was a number one. Other people were saying, 'Well... perhaps', but I could just feel it."[20]
Hackford said that "the final version was absolute magic—or at least Joel and I thought so."[10] They now had to present this song that they weren't budgeted to make to the executives at Paramount. "When we played it for Michael Eisner and Don Simpson, they hated the record and said it would never be a hit."[10] Simpson even bet Sill $100 that it wouldn't be.[14] Hackford and Sill "called another prominent record executive, who said, 'Forget it. Jennifer Warnes has never had a hit song and Joe Cocker's a has-been.'"[21] Eisner and Simpson made Hackford "meet with various recording artist friends of theirs who tried to write songs, but their title songs didn't fit the movie."[10] Hackford said, "Finally, one of the famous artists who was involved looked at the movie and said, to his credit, 'Hey, I can write something, but it's not going to work as well as the song you've got.'"[21] Because they were running out of time before the film's release, Eisner and Simpson finally gave in, and "Up Where We Belong" made the final cut of the film[21] and was released as a single on July 22, 1982.[22]
Reception
Some radio stations refused to play "Up Where We Belong", even going so far as to send their copies back to Island Records. Cocker said, "I remember going into their offices in New York. I walked in and I said, 'How's the single doing?' And this guy Mike Abrahams, who worked there, he said, 'This is how well it's doing'—and the office was piled with returns."[20] The single may have been recorded to promote the film, but Warnes pointed out that, in a sense, the success of the film was what sold the record.[15]
"Up Where We Belong" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 in the issue dated August 21 of that year and spent 3 weeks at number one during its 23 weeks there.[12] That same issue also marked its first appearance on the magazine's list of the 50 most popular Adult Contemporary songs in the US, where it stayed for 25 weeks, 6 of which were at its peak position at number three.[23] It also reached number seven on the UK Singles Chart in 1983[24] and received a Gold certification from the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) on January 6, 2023, for reaching sales and streams of 400,000 units.[25] The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) awarded the song both Gold and Platinum certification for achieving sales of 500,000 and one million copies, respectively, on January 17, 1989.[22]
Billboard reviewed the single at the time of its release in their July 31 issue. "This unlikely vocal pairing could prove less of a long shot than it sounds, given the recent gains made by other soundtrack associations. Add radio's ongoing affection for strong duets and a restrained performance by Cocker that matches him more sympathetically with Warnes's gentler style, and this track should find friends at A/C and mainstream pop stations."[1] Matthew Greenwald of AllMusic wrote, "A gospel-inspired piece of pop song craftsmanship, the song moves with an underlying grace and subtle beauty. Faith, virtue, and, yes, the power of love is at the lyrical core here, and [the songwriters] convey this with a literate and timeless style. Truly a modern-day pop standard."[26]
Warnes and Cocker kept to an agreement that they would never lip-sync their performances of the song.[7] One of their earliest live appearances was on the November 20, 1982, episode of Solid Gold.[33]Saturday Night Live followed on February 5, 1983,[34] and their performance at the 25th Annual Grammy Awards came later that month, on February 23.[28] Backstage at the Grammys Warnes said about working with Cocker, "I was told it was the weirdest pairing ever,"[35] and regarding their April 11 appearance at the 55th Academy Awards,[36] she admitted, "Neither of us were comfortable in the Oscar world. Joe performing in a white tuxedo, me in pink taffeta—how absurd."[11]
In 2013, Cocker was honored in Berlin with a Goldene Kamera award,[37] and Warnes joined him to sing the song at the ceremony. The day after Cocker's death in 2014, Warnes wrote, "I realized yesterday that we will never sing our song again. That thought makes me feel sick. We met last year in Berlin to sing together. I didn't know that would be our last time."[7] Her visceral reaction to his death parallels the powerful chemistry they had in their many performances of the song, which she had summed up years earlier: "I always thought the pairing had a strong ring of truth to it. It was so unlikely, because Joe has this well-known, very raw, masculine energy. I was less well known and had this very vulnerable, quintessential female energy and we were very polarized, as men and women often are these days. But we met in the middle."[15]
Legacy
Joe Cocker strayed from his rock/blues roots in recording "Up Where We Belong".
The success of "Up Where We Belong" was not without its drawbacks for Cocker. He admitted that Island Records owner Chris Blackwell also hated the song and wasn't interested in releasing it.[15] They had put out Cocker's first project for the label, Sheffield Steel, in June 1982, just a month before the song needed to be on store shelves if it was to coincide with the opening of the film.[38] Cocker said, "The song was recorded within a matter of hours. Sheffield Steel – I spent a year on that. And the single eclipsed it overnight."[20] But even ignoring its success, Blackwell was bothered by the fact that the duet wasn't R&B, which is what he was aiming for on Sheffield Steel.[39]
Stewart Levine produced Cocker's next LP, which was intended for Island, but, the singer revealed, as with the duet, Blackwell hated it, so Cocker left Island for Capitol.[40] The new label also had reservations about the number of slow ballads included on the new project.[40] Another producer was brought in to give the album a different tone, and the result was the 1984 release Civilized Man.[40] Peaking at number 133 on the Billboard 200, it was his lowest charting studio album in the US at that point.[41]
Capitol had been responsible for rejuvenating the careers of Tina Turner and Heart in the mid-80s, so a push was on to do so for their new client with his next project, the 1986 album Cocker.[42] Capitol's vice president of a&r, Don Grierson, explained, "After Civilized Man came out, Joe, Michael Lang [Cocker's manager], and I spent a lot of time zeroing in on just what the heck Joe Cocker was really all about. And it's my firm belief that Joe is a rocker."[42] His feeling was that "Up Where We Belong" turned out to be a double-edged sword. "It helped Joe in one sense, but it was very, very detrimental to him in another. It gave him a hit record and brought his name back to the mass market again. However, because it was such a pop, middle-of-the-road record, it took away Joe's roots in the eyes of the public and certainly in the industry."[42]
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
Notable cover versions and parodies
TelevangelistTammy Faye Bakker suggested that BeBe & CeCe Winans, two of the singers from The PTL Club, record "Up Where We Belong" after she heard the original duet in a record store, and Larnelle Harris helped BeBe make the lyrics more appealing to a Christian audience.[71] Their 1984 cover of the song from their album Lord Lift Us Up reached number 27 on the Christian Radio Hits chart[72] issued by SoundScan.[73] The duo rerecorded their gospel version in 1996 for their Greatest Hits album,[74] and their new version won the 1998 GMA Dove Award for Contemporary Gospel Song of the Year.[72]
John Robert "Joe" Cocker was an English singer known for his gritty, bluesy voice and dynamic stage performances that featured expressive body movements. Most of his best known singles, such as "Feelin' Alright?" and "Unchain My Heart", were recordings of songs written by other song writers, though he composed a number of songs for most of his albums as well, often in conjunction with songwriting partner Chris Stainton.
Wilbur Herschel Jennings was an American lyricist. He was known for writing the songs "Up Where We Belong", "Higher Love", "Tears in Heaven" and "My Heart Will Go On". He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and won several awards including three Grammy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Academy Awards.
Jennifer Jean Warnes is an American singer and songwriter who has performed as a vocalist on a number of film soundtracks. She has won two Grammy Awards, in 1983 for the Joe Cocker duet "Up Where We Belong", and in 1987 for the Bill Medley duet "(I've Had) The Time of My Life". Warnes also collaborated closely with Leonard Cohen.
Buffy Sainte-Marie, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and social activist.
Stewart Levine is an American record producer. He has worked with many artists such as The Crusaders, Minnie Riperton, Lionel Richie, Simply Red, Hugh Masekela, Huey Lewis and the News, Patti LaBelle, Sly Stone, Boy George, Oleta Adams, Killing Joke, Jon Anderson, Boz Scaggs, Womack and Womack and Curiosity Killed the Cat.
Bernard Alfred "Jack" Nitzsche was an American musician, arranger, songwriter, composer, and record producer. He came to prominence in the early 1960s as the right-hand-man of producer Phil Spector, and went on to work with the Rolling Stones, Neil Young, and others. He worked extensively in film scores for the films Performance, The Exorcist and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. In 1983, he won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for co-writing "Up Where We Belong" with Buffy Sainte-Marie.
"Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" (also titled "Against All Odds") is a song by English drummer, singer and songwriter Phil Collins. It was recorded for the soundtrack to the 1984 film of the same name. It is a power ballad in which its protagonist implores an ex-lover to "take a look at me now", knowing that reconciliation is "against all odds", but worth the gamble. The single reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, the first of seven US No. 1s for Collins in his solo career. "Against All Odds (Take a Look At Me Now)" also topped the charts in Canada, Ireland, and Norway, while peaking at No. 2 in the United Kingdom.
"You Are So Beautiful" is a song credited to Billy Preston and Bruce Fisher that was first released in 1974 on Preston's ninth studio album, The Kids & Me. It was also the B-side of his single "Struttin'". Later that same year, English singer Joe Cocker released a slower version of the song on his album I Can Stand a Little Rain. Cocker's version was produced by Jim Price, and released as a single in November 1974. It became Cocker's highest-charting solo hit in the United States, peaking at number five on the Billboard Hot 100, and at number four on Canada's Top Singles chart.
"First We Take Manhattan" is a song written by Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen. It was originally recorded by American singer Jennifer Warnes on her 1986 Cohen tribute album Famous Blue Raincoat, which consisted entirely of songs written or co-written by Cohen.
"Feelin' Alright?", also known as "Feeling Alright", is a song written by Dave Mason of the English rock band Traffic for their eponymous 1968 album Traffic. It was also released as a single, and failed to chart in both the UK and the US, but it did reach a bubbling under position of #123 on the Billboard Hot 100. Joe Cocker performed a more popular rendition of the song that did chart in the U.S. Both Traffic's and Cocker's versions appear in the 2012 movie Flight. The song was also featured in the 2000 film Duets, sung by Huey Lewis.
Joe Cocker Live is a live album by Joe Cocker, released in 1990. It was recorded live 5 October 1989 at Memorial Auditorium in Lowell, Massachusetts with the exception of the last two tracks which were recorded in the studio. The album was re-released in 2011 under the title Joe Cocker's Greatest Hits Live.
The Best of Joe Cocker is a compilation album by Joe Cocker, released as a 16-track release in UK, Germany and the rest of the Europe in 1992 and as a 12-track release in the United States and Canada in 1993.
"Right Time of the Night" is the title of a composition by Peter McCann, which became a top-ten hit single in 1977 via a recording by Jennifer Warnes.
This Joe Cocker discography lists the recordings plus live appearances of John Robert "Joe" Cocker, OBE, the English rock/blues musician, composer and actor who came to popularity in the 1960s, and was most known for his gritty voice, his idiosyncratic arm movements while performing, and his cover versions of popular songs, particularly those of the Beatles.
"Nights Are Forever" is a song written by composer Jerry Goldsmith and lyricist John Bettis that was produced by James Newton Howard and performed by Jennifer Warnes for the 1983 anthology film Twilight Zone: The Movie. The single became the follow-up to her duet with Joe Cocker, "Up Where We Belong". "Nights Are Forever" is heard very briefly during the jukebox scene in the segment of the film that was written and directed by John Landis and starred Vic Morrow.
The Legend is a compilation album by Joe Cocker, released in 1992 by Polygram TV.
Where We Belong may refer to:
Best of Jennifer Warnes is a 1982 compilation album by singer/songwriter Jennifer Warnes comprising five of her six Billboard Hot 100 singles - including the Top 40 hits "Right Time of the Night" and "I Know a Heartache When I See One" - supplemented by four other tracks also recorded for Arista Records. In addition the album gave Warnes' recording of "It Goes Like It Goes" its first wide release.
Love Lifts Us Up: A Collection 1968–83 is a compilation album by singer/songwriter Jennifer Warnes. It collects fourteen songs from Warnes' first five studio albums, two non-album singles and four tracks from motion picture soundtracks. It includes the hits "Right Time of the Night", which reached No. 6 on the Billboard singles chart, "I Know a Heartache When I See One", which peaked at No. 19, and "Up Where We Belong", a duet with Joe Cocker from the 1982 movie An Officer and a Gentleman, which stayed at No. 1 for three weeks.
Duets: Friends & Memories is an album by country pop singer Juice Newton. It was released in 2010 by Fuel Records and features Newton singing popular tunes from the 1960s to the 1980s, all as duets with other famous performers. Her collaborators include Gary Morris, Frankie Valli, Randy Meisner, Willie Nelson, Glen Campbell, Gary Morris, Dan Seals, Melissa Manchester, and Eddie Money. The original CD release of the album contained 10 songs. A later edition featuring two extra tracks is available only from iTunes.
References
1 2 "Billboard's Top Single Picks". Billboard. July 31, 1982. p.51.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Sill, Joel (2007). The Music of An Officer and a Gentleman (bonus feature from An Officer and a Gentleman, Special Collector's Edition) (DVD). Paramount.
1 2 Jennings, Will (2007). The Music of An Officer and a Gentleman (bonus feature from An Officer and a Gentleman, Special Collector's Edition) (DVD). Paramount.
↑ Levine, Stewart (2007). The Music of An Officer and a Gentleman (bonus feature from An Officer and a Gentleman, Special Collector's Edition) (DVD). Paramount.
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