Today’s classic song of the day is one some of you might remember and others will recognize when you hear it. The song is “Romeo’s Tune” by Steve Forbert. The single was released late in 1979 and peaked just short of the top ten at #11 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Cash Box Top 100 charts early the next year.
“Romeo’s Tune” is a love song with some wonderful wordplay and rhyming schemes. Check out these lyrics:
Meet me in the middle of the day
Let me hear you say everything’s okay
Bring me southern kisses from your room
Meet me in the middle of the night
Let me hear you say everything’s alright
Let me smell the moon in your perfume
“Smell the moon in your perfume.” I wish I could write like that.
Steve Forbert was a product of the folk semi-revival that hit in the late ’70s-early ’80s, which also brought us the Roches, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and other neo-folkies. Forbert, born and raised in Meridian, Mississippi, started writing songs when he was just 17 years old and moved to New York City in 1976 when he was 22. He started out singing on street corners for handouts and eventually moved up to performing at now-famous folk clubs like Gerde’s Folk City and Kenny’s Castaways. He signed with Nemperor Records in 1978 and released his first album, Alive on Arrival, that same year. That was a great record but it was his second album, Jackrabbit Slim, that contained “Romeo’s Tune” and shot him into wider consciousness. (Jackrabbit Slim ended up hitting #20 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart.)
As far as the mainstream public knows, “Romeo’s Tune” was a one-hit wonder. (Forbert’s follow-up single, “Say Goodbye to Little Jo,” released in 1980, only hit #85 on the charts.) Forbert has continued to perform and record over the decades, however, to an audience of loyal fans and folkies.
I was a big fan of Mr. Forbert and the other neo-folkies back in the day. That music inspired me to write and perform and to form the Indianapolis Songwriters Workshop, which I based on similar songwriting collectives in New York and elsewhere. There’s nothing like a bunch of songwriters sitting together with their guitars, playing songs they’ve written just that week. I love that scene.
As I said, Steve Forbert is still out there doing his thing today at 68 years of age. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2017 and had a kidney removed at that time, but he’s now cancer-free. In celebration of his work, here’s Mr. Forbert performing “Romeo’s Tune” live in 2019 on the 40th anniversary of its original release. He sounds just as good now as he did then.
