If you loved me why d you leave me lyrics

If you loved me why d you leave me lyrics “I Can’t Make You Love Me” is a music written through Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin and recorded through American singer Bonnie Raitt for her 11th studio album, Luck of the Draw (1991). Released because the album’s 2nd unmarried in 1991, “I Can’t Make You Love Me” have become certainly considered one among Raitt’s maximum a hit singles, attaining the top-20 at the Billboard Hot one hundred chart and the top-10 at the Adult Contemporary.

In August 2000, Mojo mag voted “I Can’t Make You Love Me” the 8th fine music on its The one hundred Greatest Songs of All Time listing.[1] The music is ranked at range 339 at the Rolling Stone mag’s listing of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.[2] On November 27, 2016, the Grammy Hall of Fame introduced its induction, at the side of that of every other 24 songs.[3]

Writing and recording If you loved me why d you leave me lyrics

“I Can’t Make You Love Me” turned into written through Nashville writers Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin, who have been well-cited for his or her successes withinside the united states of america tune arena. The music turned into rewritten typically earlier than being finalized, months later. “We wrote, maximum each week, in Mike’s basement,” Shamblin instructed Peter Cooper in an interview with the Nashville Tennessean. “And we would labored in this music for extra than six months. One day, he said, ‘Come as much as the dwelling room,’ in which his piano turned into. He sat down and began out gambling this melody, and it turned into one of the maximum transferring portions of tune I’d heard. I mean, it hit me in a tough manner … Instantly, I knew it turned into the fine issue I’d ever been a component of.”[4] Reid and Shamblin have been each united states of america tune songwriters, who in step with a few money owed firstly wrote the music as a fast, bluegrass range. Upon slowing down the pace considerably, they found out the music won enormous energy and idea approximately giving the music to certainly considered one among 3 artists: Bonnie Raitt, Bette Midler or Linda Ronstadt. Eventually, the music made its manner to Bonnie Raitt, who recorded the music for her 11th studio album, Luck of the Draw (1991). Raitt co-produced the music with Don Was, at the same time as Bruce Hornsby supplied a piano accompaniment.[5]

Composition and inspiration

The concept for the music got here to Reid at the same time as studying an editorial approximately a person arrested for purchasing under the influence of alcohol and capturing at his girlfriend’s car. The decide requested him if he had discovered anything, to which he replied, “I discovered, Your Honor, which you can not make a girl love you if she don’t.”[6] Raitt recorded the vocal in only one take withinside the studio, later pronouncing that it turned into so unhappy a music that she couldn’t recapture the emotion: “We’d attempt to do it once more and I simply said, ‘You know, this ain’t going to happen.'”[7]

A pensive ballad, “I Can’t Make You Love Me” turned into recorded in opposition to a quiet electric powered piano-primarily based totally arrangement, with outstanding piano fills and interpolations furnished through Bruce Hornsby.

Critical reception and accolades

“I Can’t Make You Love Me” acquired acclaim from tune critics. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic praised the music, calling it a “robust music” and choosing it as one of the album’s fine tracks.[8] Steve Hochman of Los Angeles Times hailed the music as certainly considered one among Raitt’s maximum fashionable tracks.[9] Elysa Gardner wrote for Rolling Stone that “Raitt’s gorgeously understated rendering of ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me,’ wherein sentiments such as ‘I will lay down my coronary heart and I’ll experience the energy/But you won’t’ are brought with a quiet resignation it truly is really well worth 100 glissandi in emotional weight.”[10]

“I Can’t Make You Love Me” entered many lists of the finest songs of all time. In 2000, Mojo mag located it at range eight on its “one hundred Greatest Songs of All Time” listing.[5] The music is likewise ranked No. 339 at the Rolling Stone mag’s listing of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.[2] The website “Ultimate Classic Rock” located the music at range 24 on their “25 Saddest Songs Ever”, praising Bonnie Raitt vocals, writing that “she sings in certainly considered one among her maximum impassioned vocals ever. There’s actual pain in each phrase that drips from her pained lips.”[11]

I Can’t Make You Love Me If you loved me why d you leave me lyrics

The music’s reputation helped solidify her high-quality late-in-profession industrial achievement that had started years earlier than. In the time since, “I Can’t Make You Love Me” has long gone directly to end up a pop preferred and a mainstay of person modern radio formats. For Raitt, the music turned into notoriously tough to sing, because of its required vocal range, tough phraseology and breathing, and the emotional content material involved. At the televised Grammy Awards of 1992 Raitt finished it in an excellent extra austere placing than on record, with simply her and Hornsby highlighted. As she negotiated the very last vocal line, she set free a huge audible and seen sigh of alleviation that she had effectively gotten thru it. Her stay overall performance of the music turned into launched at the 1994 album Grammy’s Greatest Moments Volume III.[12] Raitt has persisted to sing the music in all her live performance tours:

I mean, ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me’ isn’t anyt any picnic. I love that music, so does the audience. So it is nearly a sacred second whilst you proportion that, that intensity of ache together along with your audience. Because they get honestly quiet, and I should summon … a few different area for you to honor that space. If you loved me why d you leave me lyrics