Something To Believe In (M.Steele/D.White/E.Lowen/D.Navarro) - Analysis by RealInspectorShane
Year: 1988
Band: Bangles
Album: Everything
First Live Performance:
Last Live Performance: 9/13/89
Lyrics:
When I saw you for the first time
Eyes the color of the ocean
Something moved inside of me
Long forgotten lying broken
Now I can't turn away
Watching you as you lay sleeping
Can you hear winds of change
Is this something to believe in
I lost direction in the darkness
Couldn't stop myself from running
I could feel the sun on my back
But I was afraid to let the light in
Now I can't run anymore
Now I see this gift you bring me
Can you hear winds of change
Maybe this loser's luck is turning
I will carry you in my heart
I will hold you in my memory
You could be a million miles away
But when I call
You will hear me
Analysis:
The second of three Michael tracks on Everything, Something To Believe In is a lush ballad that is fondly remembered by many Bangles fans although never played live after 1989. It is also her only track cowritten with Dan Navarro and Eric Lowen in addition to David White, although little is known about the song's precise composition.
Ironically, Something To Believe In is arguably most distinctive for being the closest thing Michael has to a conventional song in her songwriting oeuvre. Unlike her other work STBI is a love song told in first-person, its its images focused on the positive effect the lover has had upon her psyche. Nevertheless, parts of the lyrics are still more ambiguous than they may first appear. This ambiguous note appears most clearly towards the end of the song, with the line 'I will hold you in my memory' on one level being a simple tribute, but also hinting that the relationship will eventually end. Even her saying her 'loser's luck is turning' is prefaced by a maybe, reminding us that even in a love song, Michael tends to avoid simple cliche.
Lowen and Navarro would later record a version of the song for a live album.
Quotes:
" It [Elton Duck] was THE band for me in 1979, and I became a sort-of groupie, no not the carnal kind, though I had a major crush on the female bass player (more on that later) and I went to as many shows as my little legs could take me to. Said bass player was an old friend, both of us having worked in a Tower Records store together, and the drummer had previously been in a band with another store employee. Mike [McFadden] had previously dated the manager of that store. Six degrees, yup.
The bass player was Michael Steele, later of the Bangles, later to co-write Something To Believe In with us, which appears on our Live Wire CD and the Bangles' Everything album." Dan Navarro, 'When you coming home?" http://www.lownav.com/bboard/viewtopic.php?p=2076
*more coming soon*
Reviews:
""Everything" also shows the effects of too much democracy, revealing the weaknesses within this combination of four different musical personalities as well as the strengths....Most of the album's highlights are provided by bassist Michael Steele, whose three contributions show musical maturity without sacrificing any of the band's tuneful accessibility." -Don McLeese, 'Bangles promise 'Everything' but fail todeliver', Chicago Sun-Times 24 October 1988
Michael Steele
