You Needed Me by Anne Murray (Capitol, 1978)

There are certain songs that you hear and they immediately take you to a golden sunny day, a perfect 72 degrees, blue sky, light breeze kind of afternoon, whether it’s because you equate that song with good times or because it was popular during that one memorable summer. Or there’s just something about it that has a warm happy feeling that just makes you relax and have fun. You Needed Me is not one of those songs. You cannot listen to this song outside. It will ruin your day and fill it with grays and browns and endless barrels of self-doubt and pity.

I’m convinced that there was a record number of hookups by shocked people in 1978, as in ‘I can’t believe I’m with this person’, to which this song immediately spoke to them. Or we were so broken down during the 70s that our optimism of ‘we can change the world’ disintegrated into ‘Does anyone give a shit anymore? Oh, you do? Nice.’ This song is like the long Indian tear streaking down Iron Eyes Cody’s face as someone throws a bag of garbage at his feet. Like a bowl of marshmallows that have heated up and melted into a sticky mess that you can’t get out of.

Canadian singer Anne Murray was spitting out Country pop hits for 10 years before she just went ‘fuck it’ in 1978 and stopped trying any more. That’s when the hits starting pouring out. [Note to you kids out there. Current pop stars start their career with that moment rather than waste 10 precious years] Anne decided to jump into the deep side of the soft rock pool with concrete block strapped to her feet. That made her an unlikely recipient of a #1 1978 hit in the middle of Bee Gees-RSO discopalooza that was monopolizing the charts.

Anne seems like a nice lady and is a legend in Canada, but her vocals on this song are so lifeless and bland, I swear I can hear her doze off in between the verses. But maybe that’s the brilliance of Anne. Since there’s hardly an emotion, we have no idea if she’s saying thank you to this guy or completely ridiculing him. ” I cried a tear. You wiped it dry. Stop touching me!” You can tell this is where someone like Shania Twain built her ‘it looks like country but sounds like mellow rock crap’ career.

And I know Anne didn’t write these lyrics, but how the hell did she sing them with such a straight face?

I was confused, you cleared my mind
I sold my soul, you bought it back for me
And held me up and gave me dignity
Somehow you needed me

She sold her soul? To whom? The devil I presume. So what do you have to do to buy back a soul from the devil, besides keeping a lot of mouthwash handy?

You gave me strength to stand alone again
To face the world out on my own again
You put me high upon a pedestal
So high that I could almost see eternity
You needed me, you needed me

Thank you for helping me so that I don’t have to hang out with you. And thanks for worshiping me so much, that I almost died. I got a feeling they sang this song at many Synanon retreats.

You held my hand when it was cold
When I was lost you took me home
You gave me hope when I was at the end
And turned my lies back into truth again
You even called me “friend”

I would love to know how to turn lies into truth. That’s a trick not even George Constanza could perform.

So basically it sounds like Anne was a crazy bitch, did tons of drug, showed up at her job at Burger Chef constantly loaded, had sex with every bi-ped she encountered, money laundered, dealt in human trafficking, ripped tags off of mattresses, you name it. But this guy didn’t care, because he needed her. He needed her. Man how screwed up is that guy? Run Anne run!

Posted by adrianqiana on February 21, 2013

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