Song #506: "The One That You Love" by Air Supply

Date: July 25, 1981
Weeks: 1

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I've never thought highly of Air Supply. I remember one of the first cassettes I bought was the soundtrack to Ghostbusters, which included a song by Air Supply that I absolutely loathed. It interrupted a high-energy soundtrack with a lousy slow song. And I couldn't even skip it, I had to fast forward through it and keep checking to see if it was over yet. This song is a bit better than that one. Or at least it's not stuck between me and the music I actually want to hear.

The instrumentation is pretty simple. It's piano, strings, and drums. Although I've spent a lot of time complaining about the songs of the 70s injecting string sections to no good purpose, this song commits to its style and sticks to it throughout. I have to respect it a bit for that. In particular, the orchestral swell during the chorus is pretty effective. But while I understand what it's going for, I'm not sure I like what it's going for. It's not that you can't mix a string orchestra with rock music, but all they've done here is add a drum, and that's just not sufficient to create an interesting sound.

The vocals by Russell Hitchcock are pretty good. He shows off his vocal range and manages to impress. The chorus and the bridge are particularly impressive. He can sound a little strained in the chorus, particularly the last iteration of it at the end, but the effect is to make him sound impassioned. The flip side is that whenever he's not strained, he's a bit bland. And the music builds and swells along with him, so while the chorus is decent overall, the verses are a chunk of blandness that must be endured before you can get back to the chorus.

Also, the part at the start of the bridge where the rest of the band sings high-pitched backup for exactly one line is silly and unnecessary. I don't know why they did that.

I'm not sure I understand the lyrics. With lines like "Must we end this way when so much here is hard to lose?" and "Here I am... asking for another day," it sounds like he's begging to not be dumped. But with lines like "Don't say the morning's come," it sounds like he's just spent the night with the person he loves. So maybe the story goes that he was going to get dumped, he begged for one last night together, got it, and now he's begging to avoid the breakup? I think that fits the lyrics best. That's kind of oddly specific for a radio love song. But I think the popularity probably just stemmed from the fairly universal sentiment expressed by the chorus. "Understand the one that you love loves you in so many ways."

My verdict: Don't like it. It's not terrible, but it's not especially interesting.