Speaker 1: Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversialist.
Speaker 2: I'm Britney Spanos and I'm Rob Sheffield. We're here to
Speaker 2: shed light on the greatest songs ever made and discover
Speaker 2: what makes them so great. This week, we're diving into
Speaker 2: Donna Summer.
Speaker 1: I Feel Love, absolute classic, a perfect song, a song
Speaker 1: that's hard to turn off. It's like it should be
Speaker 1: a thirty minute song. Actually the song can always go longer.
Speaker 2: It can always go longer in the way. It feels
Speaker 2: like it's been going ever since it came out.
Speaker 1: So I Feel Love ranked at number fifty two on
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty one list, and it jumped from number
Speaker 1: four eleven on the two thousand and four list, And
Speaker 1: it is, I mean, just like my absolute favorite. I
Speaker 1: may I love Donna Summer's entire catalog. We could have
Speaker 1: listed basically all of our singles on the list, and
Speaker 1: I would have been like, that's not even enough. But
Speaker 1: I mean, I think this one obviously takes.
Speaker 2: The cake, totally a transformative song. It's amazing that it
Speaker 2: never sounds dated. Yeah, it always sounds alien, It always
Speaker 2: sounds futuristic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it pretty much invented dance music as
Speaker 1: we know it. You know, it invented so much of
Speaker 1: house and techno, and I mean just the way that,
Speaker 1: of course, like Georgia Mroder produced this song, I mean,
Speaker 1: using the Moog synthesizer and kind of doing that repetitive
Speaker 1: synth hook on there that really just was the foundation
Speaker 1: of so much of club music until now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was number one on Rolling Stones list of
Speaker 2: the two hundred Greatest Dance Songs. Ever, it's a song
Speaker 2: that definitely cuts history in half. There's before and after
Speaker 2: I Feel Love in terms of dance music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, very appropriately. It was the last song
Speaker 1: on Donna's album I Remember Yesterday, and the theme of
Speaker 1: that album was each song represented a different decade, and
Speaker 1: of course the song represented the future, and what better
Speaker 1: song to represent that. I mean, it's a song that
Speaker 1: sounds just as fresh today as it did when it
Speaker 1: came out. You know, it still sounds like there are
Speaker 1: so many songs and mixes and remixes of songs that
Speaker 1: are just trying to emulate what that Moroder was doing
Speaker 1: with that beat, what Donna was doing with her vocals.
Speaker 1: I mean it was such a kind of unique vocal
Speaker 1: for her in terms of sort of that euphoric, kind
Speaker 1: of like head voice that she was going for instead
Speaker 1: of that like chesty, deep R and B sound that
Speaker 1: comes with so much of disco prior to I Feel
Speaker 1: Love coming.
Speaker 2: Out, Yes, but just that it was so mechanical, it
Speaker 2: was so filled with synthesizer and just totally dependent on
Speaker 2: the synthesizer. There's a human drummer, everything else is synthesizer,
Speaker 2: and it was so bold in terms of just using
Speaker 2: that as the basis of the music.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love a story that David Bowie had told about
Speaker 1: Brian Eno hearing the song when they were working in
Speaker 1: Berlin together and Brian running in and playing and saying
Speaker 1: this is the sound of the future, and predicting that
Speaker 1: this would be the sound of what we would hear
Speaker 1: in the clubs for decades to come. And it absolutely is.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a song that every time I go out,
Speaker 1: I hear it like it's constantly playing, like it's always
Speaker 1: in the mix. It's hard to not play it and
Speaker 1: see everyone actually lose their minds on the dance floor.
Speaker 1: And it is very much the sound of what the
Speaker 1: platonic ideal of a club music is.
Speaker 2: Totally just that sort of synthesized pulse. So many different
Speaker 2: types of international music come together in this song. Donna
Speaker 2: Summer such an eclectic kind of singer with so many
Speaker 2: different kinds of tastes, and she winds up in Germany
Speaker 2: making this futuristic robot disco record.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think she's obviously becoming more and more of
Speaker 1: that sort of legend and icon in terms of people
Speaker 1: really giving respect to her music. Obviously, her songs have
Speaker 1: always been a part of popular music, Hannon, you know,
Speaker 1: constantly used in movies and TV shows. I mean, like
Speaker 1: you know, on Drag Race, I think they've used like
Speaker 1: every single Donna Summer song possible for Lift Saying for
Speaker 1: your Life Challenge, you know. But I think Donna as
Speaker 1: a figure and Donna as like a true pop diva
Speaker 1: is getting more and more recognition with every year, because
Speaker 1: I mean, she is so foundational to so much of
Speaker 1: pop music and so much of what makes a great
Speaker 1: hit a great song.
Speaker 2: She was so innovative in terms of just all the
Speaker 2: different things that she did. She didn't think of herself
Speaker 2: as a soul singer or an R and B singer.
Speaker 2: She was really into Broadway tunes. She was trained on operetta,
Speaker 2: she was combining that with the sort of gospel belter tradition.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she had moved to Munich to Star and Hair right,
Speaker 1: that was Yah, the musical she had moved for. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean there was so much I mean even just
Speaker 1: in the songs that, of course are kind of more
Speaker 1: classically disco, thinking of like bad Girl and a song
Speaker 1: like MacArthur's Park, Like there's so much of like a
Speaker 1: rock vocalist in there too, Like there was all these
Speaker 1: kind of meeting points of genre in the way that
Speaker 1: she presented herself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, her first tip loved to Love You Baby.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a cluss that vocal on that. I mean,
Speaker 1: just her as a singer is just like completely insane.
Speaker 1: I mean, her range is incredible. I mean that performance
Speaker 1: is just like unique, especially for that time of just
Speaker 1: like what a female singer could do on a song
Speaker 1: like that obviously was like very shocking to a lot
Speaker 1: of listeners to kind of have this like super erotic
Speaker 1: performance on a disco song, and I mean just like
Speaker 1: an absolute banger.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it wasn't the first like orgasm vocal record,
Speaker 2: but it was. It definitely took it to an extreme. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and just with that euro disco esthetic that was so new,
Speaker 2: it just seemed to stretch out forever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what was your relationship with like disco in the seventies,
Speaker 1: because I feel like there's such a generational difference for
Speaker 1: how people view disco now versus you know, obviously there's
Speaker 1: like the disco demolition and all of that stuff, but like,
Speaker 1: what was that kind of I guess the coolness range
Speaker 1: of disco when you were growing up.
Speaker 2: For you and for your peers, disco is always massive.
Speaker 2: It was always hit music that had started out as
Speaker 2: you know, a cult sort of dance style. It was
Speaker 2: always in the air. And with something like I Feel Love,
Speaker 2: there's a real advance from the sort of live band disco.
Speaker 2: I mean the seventies were just full of disco hits,
Speaker 2: yeah Casey in the Sunshine Band to disco texts and
Speaker 2: the sex allettes, and yet there was something about I
Speaker 2: Feel Love. It was so stark and so cold. It
Speaker 2: doesn't sound like a band playing because it isn't band playing.
Speaker 2: It's a surprise in a way that there's a human
Speaker 2: drummer on it. It was definitely something that the first
Speaker 2: time you hear it, you know it's something different, and
Speaker 2: hearing it, I couldn't believe my ears at how alien
Speaker 2: it sounded. It didn't sound like any other pop music
Speaker 2: I'd ever heard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's something about it. I mean, even in terms
Speaker 1: of how there's so much like house and techno that
Speaker 1: emulates it and is so inspired by it, there's still
Speaker 1: nothing that kind of captures exactly what Donna and Giorgio
Speaker 1: kind of where we're creating on this type of song,
Speaker 1: I mean, so unique in so many ways. There's kind
Speaker 1: of there's still this like absolute warmness to it too,
Speaker 1: Like I find in her vocals, like and even with
Speaker 1: all that coldness of the sense and just kind of
Speaker 1: the way that all that combines and builds up over
Speaker 1: the course of the song, Like there's something really beautiful
Speaker 1: about what that brings to any sort of like communal
Speaker 1: setting where it's being played, Like it really is just
Speaker 1: kind of that perfect communal song to experience.
Speaker 2: It's really communal, I guess is the word. And yet
Speaker 2: it's so she sounds like she's floating in space in
Speaker 2: a way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been fascinated by kind of like the last
Speaker 1: decade of this Donna renaissance and sort of the I
Speaker 1: Feel Love renaissance and disco renaissance has been happening where
Speaker 1: there are so many like people really gravitating to basically
Speaker 1: all of Donna's discography, any sort of big disco hit
Speaker 1: from that era, and any song that kind of comes
Speaker 1: from this like family of what Donna and Georgio were
Speaker 1: creating during this era, because there's so many like disco
Speaker 1: parties and so many disco nights that are happening, And
Speaker 1: is really fascinating how much that's become so repopularized and
Speaker 1: so important to people lately. And I mean, like I
Speaker 1: love it. Every time I see, like there's a you know,
Speaker 1: Donna Summer on a party flyer, I'm like, see there.
Speaker 2: You can hear. It's influenced just everywhere in pop music. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's wild how many hits that she packed into her
Speaker 2: run in the late seventies. Yeah, especially in seventy eight
Speaker 2: seventy nine, she was really evolving musically really fast. Like
Speaker 2: you said she was going to for more of a
Speaker 2: rock sound with something like that.
Speaker 1: Girls, Yeah, I mean, and I mean she has a
Speaker 1: great duet with Barbara streisand too, I mean like she's
Speaker 1: like kind of was she was doing so much with
Speaker 1: this disco and kind of showing off that vocal range
Speaker 1: and kind of doing these like kind of more standard
Speaker 1: kind of soulful duets and standards and things like that.
Speaker 1: But there was so much that she was kind of
Speaker 1: exploring in her music and a pretty like now seemingly
Speaker 1: short time of kind of that major hit period that
Speaker 1: she had in her career.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's your favorite Donna summer hit?
Speaker 1: I Feel Love is definitely this. It was on my
Speaker 1: ballot for the five hundred Greatest Songs. But I'm a
Speaker 1: huge d fan of MacArthur Park. Like, I love her
Speaker 1: cover of that song.
Speaker 2: Wow, I love it.
Speaker 1: I mean I think just like the scream, the like
Speaker 1: howl that she does is so I absolutely adore that,
Speaker 1: Like I think that that howl is like one of
Speaker 1: my favorite moments and like in a song ever Wow Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just like Also that song is just so lyrically
Speaker 1: silly and I love it. But yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: that one's like a big one, and Bad Girl probably
Speaker 1: would be another.
Speaker 2: Yes, the Elemental to two It's hard to step to
Speaker 2: that one. Dim All the Lights, Yeah, is a huge
Speaker 2: favorite of mine. I like the Donna summer songs where
Speaker 2: she begins with the ballad and then sort of kicks
Speaker 2: it in. I mean you mentioned MacArthur Park.
Speaker 1: Oh I love that one. Yeah, I just I love
Speaker 1: her vocals on that song.
Speaker 2: It's great.
Speaker 3: Ye.
Speaker 2: She's definitely going for that sort of witchy power.
Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of that's, you know, sort of the vibe
Speaker 1: I go for all music is what's the most witchiest
Speaker 1: song that they have? And that one, for sure is
Speaker 1: a tough one.
Speaker 2: I feel love teaming up with Georgio Moroder and people lot.
Speaker 2: What was their influence on dance music?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean so much of what we consider to
Speaker 1: be kind of great dance music. Georgia Roder is so
Speaker 1: much a foundation of that, and you know, especially his
Speaker 1: partnerships with Donna, like they kind of reinvented everything about
Speaker 1: the genre. I mean he was just like has like
Speaker 1: kind of that perfect sort of like europop euro dance brain.
Speaker 1: Like so much of that is kind of what we
Speaker 1: would hear for the next several decades of dance music,
Speaker 1: like lean Up, especially kind of to the big boom
Speaker 1: of house music in the nineties, Like all that is
Speaker 1: so so much leaning on what Georgia Roder was creating
Speaker 1: in the seventies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, such a sleek sound. He worked with so many
Speaker 2: different types of artists and made so many different kinds
Speaker 2: of records. One of my favorites is his David Bowie
Speaker 2: record Cat People in the nineteen eighty two version, which
Speaker 2: is not as sleek and synthesized as Georgia Moroder really
Speaker 2: usually comes off as. But it's just a fantastic meeting
Speaker 2: of minds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really love he did a version of Tom's
Speaker 1: Diner with Britney Spears like six or seven years ago.
Speaker 1: Great song that.
Speaker 2: Sounds like a perfect storm of like stuff that you love.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a real fun one, but yeah, it was
Speaker 1: a great combination.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think just kind of everything that I love about
Speaker 1: dance music. That really slick melody and really really good
Speaker 1: sense of groove that Georgia Roder is so known for.
Speaker 1: Like that is everything that I love about dance music
Speaker 1: and about kind of really great kind of club music,
Speaker 1: and he's kind of he's very foundational to that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I love his Blondie so much. Call Me is
Speaker 2: such a banger.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, even thinking just like how much he
Speaker 1: did on I feel love and how much I inspired
Speaker 1: so many artists like Blondie and I know for this song,
Speaker 1: like Kylie Minogue, this is a big foundational song for
Speaker 1: her musically. I mean, there's so many artists that you
Speaker 1: kind of can pinpoint this particular song and this particular
Speaker 1: turning point musically for him and for Donna, as a
Speaker 1: turning point for all these artists who came after them.
Speaker 2: And just the idea of the synthesizer as not imitating
Speaker 2: another instrument, but just the synthesizer in itself. It's well
Speaker 2: that this came out around the same time that craft
Speaker 2: work we're making phenomenally innovative records in Germany.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean just kind of that. I know, there's
Speaker 1: like that sort of hypnotic nature of the song, is
Speaker 1: just that kind of repetitiveness that doesn't grow tiring with it,
Speaker 1: and kind of the way it builds up and keeps
Speaker 1: going and is again sort of that ideal of what
Speaker 1: you want from a really great kind of dance hit
Speaker 1: moment of creating that euphoria, creating that kind of like
Speaker 1: hypnotic moment of it kind of like really new in
Speaker 1: and I just like love the way that builds up
Speaker 1: and that's why I love like, I love like the
Speaker 1: eight minute version of the song. It's just like really
Speaker 1: like I like it. It's really hard for me to
Speaker 1: listen to the like three or five minute versions because
Speaker 1: I really need the eight minute version is exactly I
Speaker 1: lost it to me.
Speaker 2: That's fun. I guess that's part of the reason it
Speaker 2: works so well always on the radio or on the floor,
Speaker 2: that you can fade it in faded out, because it
Speaker 2: is so repetitive and because it didn't structured like a
Speaker 2: classical song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really it's kind of hard to turn off
Speaker 1: the song only one time, so it's a real like
Speaker 1: kind of play it on loop for a good couple
Speaker 1: hours and never wanted to be cut short when you
Speaker 1: hear it at like the club or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's impact on the Detroit techno sound, yes, especially fruitful.
Speaker 2: I mean I Feel Love went everywhere and traveled everywhere
Speaker 2: and pop music. It's wild how much the sound of
Speaker 2: Detroit techno, which is my favorite style of house it
Speaker 2: was built so much on just that little I Feel
Speaker 2: Love synthesizer rhythm.
Speaker 1: Even just like yeah, like everything that would come for
Speaker 1: the next day, specially like specifically two decades after this
Speaker 1: song like leaning in from like the Detroit techno into
Speaker 1: like Chicago house scene. Like just hearing this song be
Speaker 1: sort of replicated so much over the course of those
Speaker 1: two decades is like pretty insane. How how much it
Speaker 1: kind of shifted, like everything of what yeah, people thought
Speaker 1: you can make from from a synthesizer and what could sound.
Speaker 2: Like Yes, all the English new wave groups like wanted
Speaker 2: to do it Deuran. Duran began their career with the
Speaker 2: single Planet Earth, which basically begins with that I Feel
Speaker 2: Love beat. They worked with him on their last album.
Speaker 2: It's still a fruitful partnership after all these years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was. I was also like I was shocked
Speaker 1: to the I wrote a quote from the inventor of
Speaker 1: the Moog synthesizer, whose name I believe is Robert Moog
Speaker 1: mog Mog, Yes, and he was very critical of the song.
Speaker 1: He's very critical of the repetitive nature of that synth
Speaker 1: hook that Moroder uses on it. Like he was really
Speaker 1: he didn't like it, which I'm really shocked that he wouldn't.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't like the way this came out, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of this like really intoxicating song that
Speaker 1: exists and completely reinvented the use of it.
Speaker 2: You listen to something like that next to something like
Speaker 2: James Brown, and it's clear that this is a real
Speaker 2: break with that sort of funk sound. The fact that
Speaker 2: it was with the human drummer is always a little weird, yeah,
Speaker 2: because it sounds so much like a drum machine. It's
Speaker 2: Keith Force, who is the producer who did all those
Speaker 2: billy idol hits oh in the eighties. His most famous
Speaker 2: production is Don't You Forget About Me? Oh simple mans
Speaker 2: that it's wild to even think that he was sort
Speaker 2: of the ghost in the machine for this song.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like I think, especially with thinking about
Speaker 1: how like the longevity of the song and sort of
Speaker 1: the way that it's continued into this era of pop music, I.
Speaker 2: Feel love it's still really the standard of that sort
Speaker 2: of obsessive, hypnotic, as you said, sort of sound that
Speaker 2: dance music still aspires to.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, like I feel like thinking so much with
Speaker 1: that sort of disco come back of like twenty twenty
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one and hearing like Doja cat On Say
Speaker 1: So and like Hallucinate by Dua Lipa and songs from
Speaker 1: that kind of resurgence of disco, like hearing artists emulate
Speaker 1: so much of like Donna Summer and so much of
Speaker 1: those like great disco vocalists, and also that hypnotic nature
Speaker 1: of really great disc of music in a song like
Speaker 1: I feel Love, I Love kind of hear that hearing
Speaker 1: that come back and inspire so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a couple of years later, just two years
Speaker 2: after I Feel Love, She's got Bad Girls, which is
Speaker 2: a totally different kind of sound. I Feel Love such
Speaker 2: an innovative record, Yeah, I mean love to Love You
Speaker 2: Baby is one thing, because there's a great tradition of
Speaker 2: dance records where it's just people moaning and groaning. That's
Speaker 2: to see. That's that goes way back before disco, and
Speaker 2: for Donna Summer to make that her debut hit seemingly
Speaker 2: would have stereotyped her and that sort of direction. But
Speaker 2: I Feel Love it's not a very difficult kind of record.
Speaker 2: Nobody's moaning or groaning, She's sounding really kind of robotic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's just like so completely out of
Speaker 1: I think what anyone sort of anticipated she would follow
Speaker 1: that type of song with or so kind of continue
Speaker 1: with what she would do with her career, and I mean,
Speaker 1: I think allowed so much of what she's able to
Speaker 1: explore on her albums after that, and be able to
Speaker 1: try new things and explore kind of that go back
Speaker 1: to that theater side, try the rockside, kind of do
Speaker 1: the standards and things like that that she would continue
Speaker 1: doing for the rest of her singing career. What do
Speaker 1: you sort of see happening with sort of Donna Summer's
Speaker 1: legacy and I feel love in the coming years, like
Speaker 1: will this song shoot up in the next like version
Speaker 1: of this of this list, will it kind of maybe
Speaker 1: crack the top ten, fifteen or twenty.
Speaker 2: Well, it's wild that it never sounds dated. It never
Speaker 2: has a quaint sort of quality. I guess because it's
Speaker 2: so cold and sleek and hard and metallic. It's very
Speaker 2: strange how it never does sound destier. I've dated in
Speaker 2: a way that so many records from that period have
Speaker 2: very much a time capsule quality. That's part of what's
Speaker 2: great about them. But I feel loved at the time
Speaker 2: and now very much almost disconnected from well, it's not
Speaker 2: disconnected from disco, but it's a record that stands out
Speaker 2: and just sort of stands out, is beyond time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like with each growing obviously this it
Speaker 1: jumped up a lot from the original list, Like, I
Speaker 1: can very much see this song because it is so
Speaker 1: foundational to so much of dance music and so many
Speaker 1: genres that continue to kind of grow with popularity and
Speaker 1: kind of remain popular over the years. Like, I feel
Speaker 1: like I could see the song kind of jumping up
Speaker 1: on the next vote because it seems still so so
Speaker 1: relevant to everything that people love about really great pop
Speaker 1: music and dance music and just a really great song.
Speaker 1: We are joined now by singer songwriter Bruce Adanna, who
Speaker 1: is also the husband of the late great Donna Summer.
Speaker 1: Thank you so so much for joining us today.
Speaker 3: Hey, Rob, Hey Brutany. Nice to be here.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate you joining us, and I mean especially
Speaker 1: talking about this really great song that's on our five
Speaker 1: hundred grest songs list, but also to talk to someone
Speaker 1: who I've read is the inspiration behind I Feel Love,
Speaker 1: And I'm curious if remember a little bit about hearing
Speaker 1: about those songwriting sessions that Donna had and the kind
Speaker 1: of what led to to the song.
Speaker 3: I don't know about the validity of it being a
Speaker 3: song inspired by me, but It did happen at a
Speaker 3: time when Donna and I had just met. We met
Speaker 3: in March of nineteen seventy seven in Los Angeles. That
Speaker 3: was right around the time that she was recording the
Speaker 3: I Remember Yesterday album. I was in a group called
Speaker 3: Brooklyn Dreams and we had recently got signed to a
Speaker 3: label in New York call Millennium Records, and we were
Speaker 3: recording our first album out in Irvine, California. On that
Speaker 3: first album, Donna came out and sang on our album.
Speaker 3: We conversely sang on the I Remember Yesterday, and this
Speaker 3: was the same album that I Feel Love was on,
Speaker 3: and the I Remember Yesterday album was kind of like,
Speaker 3: you know, Georgia, Pete and Donna liked to do conceptual albums,
Speaker 3: and I Remember Yesterday was kind of recollection of music
Speaker 3: through time, and when they got to the future, it
Speaker 3: was like, what was the future going to be? And
Speaker 3: this was at the beginning of synthesizers nineteen seventy seven,
Speaker 3: and Georgio put together this track, which was at the
Speaker 3: time was like what's that? How cool? But Pete and
Speaker 3: Donna got together and started working on the lyric for
Speaker 3: I Feel Love, which was the song to be of
Speaker 3: the future.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I remember Donna telling me that. You know, they kept
Speaker 3: writing all these lyrics and at some point she just
Speaker 3: was like, no, this song has to be really, really simple.
Speaker 3: It has to float over the track, and it can't
Speaker 3: be a lot of words, and so basically wrote the
Speaker 3: very beautiful but simple lines that became I Feel Love.
Speaker 3: And it was exactly the right call because the way
Speaker 3: the melody and the simplicity of it, but the see
Speaker 3: of the message at the same time, So it was
Speaker 3: both modern and forward thinking, and it had a sensuality
Speaker 3: to it, and it became the godmother of EDM.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So what do you recall of the song blowing up
Speaker 1: and kind of hearing that song begin to spread and
Speaker 1: you know, sort of seeing it become popular at that time.
Speaker 3: You know. At the time, you know, Donna kept having
Speaker 3: these songs that were would start as ballads and then
Speaker 3: kick off into a dance song. I know that she
Speaker 3: and the record company they wanted to have a song
Speaker 3: that was a ballad as a hit. So there was
Speaker 3: this song called Can't We Just Sit Down and Talk
Speaker 3: It Over, which was also only I Remember Yesterday record,
Speaker 3: and that went out as the single and in those days,
Speaker 3: there was an A side and the B side, and
Speaker 3: I Feel Love was on the B side, So the
Speaker 3: stations went out. The ballad was the one that they
Speaker 3: were supposed to play, and a couple of weeks went
Speaker 3: by and the ballad was doing okay, but it was
Speaker 3: kind of like just like lumbering along, and then all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, you know, it got flipped over and
Speaker 3: I Feel Love just took on a life of its own,
Speaker 3: you know, and casta Blancer Records. It was an in
Speaker 3: the moment label, you know, headed by Neil Bogart, but
Speaker 3: with a lean, mean staff you know, who were all
Speaker 3: creative and from the promotion department to the marketing department
Speaker 3: to the art department. I mean, if you look at
Speaker 3: all Donna's album covers, you know that they were really
Speaker 3: you know, special, each individual in their own way. But anyway,
Speaker 3: so quickly they realized that I Feel Love was moving,
Speaker 3: and in a moment, they jumped on it and it
Speaker 3: started flying.
Speaker 1: And what do you recall of what Donna was like
Speaker 1: behind the scenes, especially as someone who worked with her
Speaker 1: on this album and also then was beginning a relationship
Speaker 1: with her, you know what was sort of motivating her
Speaker 1: and driving her.
Speaker 3: At that time, Donna was a super creative person, and
Speaker 3: she had a lot of energy, and she was very
Speaker 3: positive and funny and felt that she was called to
Speaker 3: her career and he took it so seriously and respected
Speaker 3: the gifts that she was given and worked very hard
Speaker 3: along with a team of a lot of people to
Speaker 3: create the career that she had. But she was also
Speaker 3: a very complete person and we got married in nineteen eighty.
Speaker 3: We were married for thirty two years until she passed away.
Speaker 3: We raised three daughters, I have nine grandchildren. It was
Speaker 3: like not only a successful career, but more importantly was
Speaker 3: to have a successful life. So, you know, we navigated
Speaker 3: the balance of being super creative and having a great team,
Speaker 3: you know, like Georgia and Worrolda, Pete Baladi, Howard Foldemeyer
Speaker 3: Casablanc and Neil Bauguart, all these people. There's a certain
Speaker 3: chemistry that happens when magic happens that you know, you
Speaker 3: can conceptually try to put a team together that you
Speaker 3: think is going to happen, but when it happens, it's
Speaker 3: really magic, and things take on a life of their
Speaker 3: own and you just basically are along for the ride
Speaker 3: and try to stay out of it.
Speaker 2: What does the innovation and inspiration come from.
Speaker 3: Well, this is you know, you're dealing with super talented people.
Speaker 3: And like I said earlier, I remember Yesterday was dealing
Speaker 3: in different genres of music over time, and I feel
Speaker 3: Love was essentially, in a way, Giorgio Moroders musical take
Speaker 3: on maybe what the future would be. Donna and Georgio
Speaker 3: and Pete were always wanting to push the envelope. They
Speaker 3: were not people that were in complacent in doing what
Speaker 3: they had just done. It's you know, Donna was always
Speaker 3: excited about what's next and what's the new gadget we
Speaker 3: can incorporate, And this was how their minds work. So
Speaker 3: synthesizers were coming into play for the first time nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy seven. You know, there was craftwork doing things. And
Speaker 3: it's interesting because a very underrated member of this team
Speaker 3: in my estimation, is Jurgen Coppers, who was the engineer
Speaker 3: who engineered Donna's record from Love to Love You Baby,
Speaker 3: to Four Seasons of Love and Once Upon a Time
Speaker 3: and then I remember used to Yesterday Bad Girls, and
Speaker 3: those records sounded as great as they sounded, you know,
Speaker 3: because Jorgan was so great and people don't mention him,
Speaker 3: but as it applies to I Feel Love, he was
Speaker 3: the one that put the slap back delay on that baseline,
Speaker 3: that gave it that bouncing deal. So, you know, inspired
Speaker 3: of what would the future be, finding a melody that
Speaker 3: would float in it and work, and a message that
Speaker 3: has a sensuality and a meaning to it. So it's
Speaker 3: a combination of greatness, you know, the ability of the
Speaker 3: record company to adapt in the moment of you know,
Speaker 3: it's the B side. Let's go, let's with shifting gears.
Speaker 3: Now boom, I'll bring it home. And for many years,
Speaker 3: Last Dance was a Donna's biggest song. Then She Works
Speaker 3: Hard for the Money was a big song, and MacArthur
Speaker 3: Park and I mean there's all these big songs, but
Speaker 3: I Feel Love is the one that, as I sit
Speaker 3: with the catalog, is the one that continues to grow
Speaker 3: in its power and its importance. You know, Beyonce has
Speaker 3: just did an interpolation. I mean, there's ongoing things, you know,
Speaker 3: as many stories of I Feel Love, but it's the
Speaker 3: one that has continued to grow exponentially over time.
Speaker 2: You talk about her as the godmother of DM but
Speaker 2: in so many ways she in this record seem like
Speaker 2: they basically invented modern pop.
Speaker 3: It's an interesting evolution. In the early days, it was
Speaker 3: hard to get airplay. Radio stations did not want to
Speaker 3: play disco music. Dance music was like not cool, you know,
Speaker 3: And I always struggled with the concept because I come
Speaker 3: out of folk music and rock music in the sixties.
Speaker 2: And all that.
Speaker 3: But I was never a snob. There were corny things
Speaker 3: in dance music, for sure, but there was always things
Speaker 3: with great musicality, great horn arrangements, great string of arrangements,
Speaker 3: great rhythm arrangements, all things musically working together in a
Speaker 3: very great and powerful way. So there was great musicality
Speaker 3: in a lot of those records, and that moment peaked
Speaker 3: and then it became I Feel Love, and that became
Speaker 3: what dance music transitioned from bus You know, you had
Speaker 3: MacArthur Park and you had Last Dance and these beautiful arrangements,
Speaker 3: but dance music shifted right at that moment, and you're
Speaker 3: saying pop music, and you know, then dance music became
Speaker 3: what radio was about. So you know, maybe it was
Speaker 3: I Feel Love that cracked the egg in that moment
Speaker 3: and created the transition from what pop radio was into
Speaker 3: what it was becoming.
Speaker 1: There's been a countless number of albums that artists have
Speaker 1: released that are directly referencing not just I Feel Love,
Speaker 1: but directly referencing Donna's discography and Donna as sort of
Speaker 1: this mother of disco, And what has it been like
Speaker 1: for you and your family to kind of hear the
Speaker 1: longevity and influence and impact of her singing style, of
Speaker 1: her music, of her musicality, of her creativity, and of
Speaker 1: this very future forward thinking that she had with her
Speaker 1: with her songs that she released for us.
Speaker 3: It's gratifying and in the sense bittersweet, you know, because
Speaker 3: for all Donna's success, there was always an underlying struggle
Speaker 3: for the recognition that she honestly disserved. She had an
Speaker 3: amazing gift, and not only as a singer, bit as
Speaker 3: a songwriter. You know, her sense of fashion, you know,
Speaker 3: there were so many pictures. I've started collecting him now
Speaker 3: because I've forgotten, you know, all the different looks and
Speaker 3: all of that, you know, so when I see them
Speaker 3: online now I'm like making a file. It's you know,
Speaker 3: but she just influenced the culture in so many ways,
Speaker 3: and you know these things take time, because it takes
Speaker 3: a while for history and time to go by for
Speaker 3: people to look back and go like, oh wow, this
Speaker 3: defined the decade.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you so much for joining us to day.
Speaker 1: Really really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Happy to be here.
Speaker 2: You are amazing. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: Thanks Rob, Thanks NYT.
Speaker 1: Y'all, thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stone's five
Speaker 1: hundred Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone and iHeartMedia. Written hosted by me Britney Spanos
Speaker 1: and Rob Sheffield. Executive produced by GUS Winner, Jason Vine,
Speaker 1: Alex Dale and Christian Horde, and produced by Jesse Cannon,
Speaker 1: with music supervision by Eric Zeiler.