God Must Be A Cowboy At Heart
Ganked w/o permission from USA Today ...
NASHVILLE - Dan Seals, who was England Dan in the pop duo England Dan and John Ford Coley and later had a successful country career, has died of complications from cancer. He was 61. Longtime manager Tony Gottlieb said Seals, diagnosed with lymphoma two years ago, died Wednesday night at his daughter's home in Nashville.
With England Dan and John Ford Coley, Seals had hits including I'd Really Like to See You Tonight and Nights Are Forever, both in 1976. His country hits in the '80s and '90s included Bop,You Still Move Me,Love on Arrival, and a duet with Marie Osmond, Meet Me in Montana.
"I've loved to play and sing from the moment I knew what it was," he told The Associated Press in 1992.
Seals, who is survived by his wife and four children, was in hospice care when he died.
"He was very positive," said Gottlieb, Seals' manager for about 30 years. "He participated in several clinical trials to assist with research on this type of lymphoma."
Gottlieb said a major misconception about Seals is that he was a pop singer who came to country music. In reality, he said, Seals grew up singing country music and crossed into pop.
"He was raised in a very rural part of West Texas. His father was an amateur country singer, and he used to play with his dad. They were Hank Williams, Grand Ole Opry people. He was much more of a country singer than a pop singer."
Seals' older brother, Jimmy, was the Seals in Seals & Crofts, who recorded the hits Summer Breeze and Diamond Girl in the 1970s.
Until Dan Seals got sick, the brothers were working as a duo, Seals & Seals. They performed some shows and were recording an album but never finished it. The songs they did complete, about eight in all, will be released.
"In the last two years he only did like three shows," Gottlieb said. "He just didn't have the energy."
Seals, whose father was a pipefitter, was born in McCamey, Texas, and grew up in Iraan, Texas, and Dallas.
His well-crafted songs tended to be insightful and graphic with lofty themes. In 1989, his music video for the song Rage On addressed a topic rare in country music: an interracial relationship. It showed angry youths smashing the windows of the car of a young man dating a girl of a different race. One boy hurled a beer bottle at the girl's father. The song itself was about small town values.
"When we record songs, we take chances," Seals said at the time. "We feel we are on the cutting edge of what we can do."
************************************************************************
My favorite Dan Seals song?
Addicted
From the 1988 Capitol record Rage On
She says she hates to sleep alone
But she'll do it tonight
She wants to grab her telephone
But she knows it ain't right
So if he won't call she'll survive
And if he don't care she'll get by
Climb into bed bury her head and cry
From the beginning he was all anyone could have been
They were delirious with love
They were certain to win
Now he's breaking plans more and more
And he's leaving notes on her door
Took a trip out of town
Couldn't turn this one down
He said I guess I should have told you before
She says she feels like she's addicted to a real bad thing
Always sitting, waiting wondering if the phone will ring
She knows she bounces like a yo-yo when he pulls her string
It hurts to feel like such a fool
She wants to tell him not to call or come around again
He doesn't need her now at all the way that she needs him
She's on the edge about to fall from leaning out and in
And she don't know which way to move
She wants to be fair
She couldn't say he was ever unkind
But if she could bear to walk away
She thinks he wouldn't mind
'Cause he just keeps himself so apart
And there's no one else in her heart
So she's taking a dive from an emotional high
And coming down hard
She's determined to try
But she'll still give in when he gives her a call
She'll ask herself why
But in the end it won't matter at all
Sure she could sit at home
Stay inside and sleep alone with her pride
And as she walks out that door
She feels as weak as before with nothing to hide
She says she feels like she's addicted to a real bad thing
Always sitting waiting wondering if the phone will ring
She knows she bounces like a yo-yo when he pulls her string
It hurts to feel like such a fool
She wants to tell him not to call or come around again
He doesn't need her now at all the way that she needs him
She's on the edge about to fall from leaning out and in
And she don't know which way to move
She says she feels like she's addicted to a real bad thing
Always sitting waiting wondering if the phone will ring
She knows she bounces like a yo-yo when he pulls her string
It hurts to feel like such a fool
And she don't know which way to move
It hurts to feel like such a fool
************************************************************************
I watched my father give 25 years of his life to IBM. November 1990, three weeks before Christmas, I'm a sophomore in HS, Elise was in the first grade -- all of a sudden it's "Thank you very much, but we just don't need you anymore. You can take this 'benefits package,' which is 'commensurate with your time with the company,' now ... or you can hang on until June 91, get fired outright and get nothing." They called that 'a choice.'
Now, I never expected IBM to cart me around from cradle-to-grave like Paris Hilton's puppy-in-a-purse, and I firmly believe that anyone who does (I can name at least half the kids I went to school with, here) needs to be in the state hospital for their own safety, if not the public well-being. But after 25 years personally at the time, and as of 2008 half a century in Essex Junction in general, I sure as Hell expected a little more than "Are you still here? Shoo, we don't want you anymore, shoo, begone."
The line in the chorus, "He doesn't need her now at all the way that she needs him," that's Essex Junction's relationship with IBM in one sentence. IBM can tell Essex Junction whatever lies and broken promises it wants. And let me tell you, it certainly does hurt to feel like such a fool.
Thanks, Dan, for the memories. Your music was part of the soundtrack of my childhood. I wish I had some of your stuff on the computer, but I've only got one CD and two cassettes (yes, cassettes), and no memory to store them in.
NASHVILLE - Dan Seals, who was England Dan in the pop duo England Dan and John Ford Coley and later had a successful country career, has died of complications from cancer. He was 61. Longtime manager Tony Gottlieb said Seals, diagnosed with lymphoma two years ago, died Wednesday night at his daughter's home in Nashville.
With England Dan and John Ford Coley, Seals had hits including I'd Really Like to See You Tonight and Nights Are Forever, both in 1976. His country hits in the '80s and '90s included Bop,You Still Move Me,Love on Arrival, and a duet with Marie Osmond, Meet Me in Montana.
"I've loved to play and sing from the moment I knew what it was," he told The Associated Press in 1992.
Seals, who is survived by his wife and four children, was in hospice care when he died.
"He was very positive," said Gottlieb, Seals' manager for about 30 years. "He participated in several clinical trials to assist with research on this type of lymphoma."
Gottlieb said a major misconception about Seals is that he was a pop singer who came to country music. In reality, he said, Seals grew up singing country music and crossed into pop.
"He was raised in a very rural part of West Texas. His father was an amateur country singer, and he used to play with his dad. They were Hank Williams, Grand Ole Opry people. He was much more of a country singer than a pop singer."
Seals' older brother, Jimmy, was the Seals in Seals & Crofts, who recorded the hits Summer Breeze and Diamond Girl in the 1970s.
Until Dan Seals got sick, the brothers were working as a duo, Seals & Seals. They performed some shows and were recording an album but never finished it. The songs they did complete, about eight in all, will be released.
"In the last two years he only did like three shows," Gottlieb said. "He just didn't have the energy."
Seals, whose father was a pipefitter, was born in McCamey, Texas, and grew up in Iraan, Texas, and Dallas.
His well-crafted songs tended to be insightful and graphic with lofty themes. In 1989, his music video for the song Rage On addressed a topic rare in country music: an interracial relationship. It showed angry youths smashing the windows of the car of a young man dating a girl of a different race. One boy hurled a beer bottle at the girl's father. The song itself was about small town values.
"When we record songs, we take chances," Seals said at the time. "We feel we are on the cutting edge of what we can do."
************************************************************************
My favorite Dan Seals song?
Addicted
From the 1988 Capitol record Rage On
She says she hates to sleep alone
But she'll do it tonight
She wants to grab her telephone
But she knows it ain't right
So if he won't call she'll survive
And if he don't care she'll get by
Climb into bed bury her head and cry
From the beginning he was all anyone could have been
They were delirious with love
They were certain to win
Now he's breaking plans more and more
And he's leaving notes on her door
Took a trip out of town
Couldn't turn this one down
He said I guess I should have told you before
She says she feels like she's addicted to a real bad thing
Always sitting, waiting wondering if the phone will ring
She knows she bounces like a yo-yo when he pulls her string
It hurts to feel like such a fool
She wants to tell him not to call or come around again
He doesn't need her now at all the way that she needs him
She's on the edge about to fall from leaning out and in
And she don't know which way to move
She wants to be fair
She couldn't say he was ever unkind
But if she could bear to walk away
She thinks he wouldn't mind
'Cause he just keeps himself so apart
And there's no one else in her heart
So she's taking a dive from an emotional high
And coming down hard
She's determined to try
But she'll still give in when he gives her a call
She'll ask herself why
But in the end it won't matter at all
Sure she could sit at home
Stay inside and sleep alone with her pride
And as she walks out that door
She feels as weak as before with nothing to hide
She says she feels like she's addicted to a real bad thing
Always sitting waiting wondering if the phone will ring
She knows she bounces like a yo-yo when he pulls her string
It hurts to feel like such a fool
She wants to tell him not to call or come around again
He doesn't need her now at all the way that she needs him
She's on the edge about to fall from leaning out and in
And she don't know which way to move
She says she feels like she's addicted to a real bad thing
Always sitting waiting wondering if the phone will ring
She knows she bounces like a yo-yo when he pulls her string
It hurts to feel like such a fool
And she don't know which way to move
It hurts to feel like such a fool
************************************************************************
I watched my father give 25 years of his life to IBM. November 1990, three weeks before Christmas, I'm a sophomore in HS, Elise was in the first grade -- all of a sudden it's "Thank you very much, but we just don't need you anymore. You can take this 'benefits package,' which is 'commensurate with your time with the company,' now ... or you can hang on until June 91, get fired outright and get nothing." They called that 'a choice.'
Now, I never expected IBM to cart me around from cradle-to-grave like Paris Hilton's puppy-in-a-purse, and I firmly believe that anyone who does (I can name at least half the kids I went to school with, here) needs to be in the state hospital for their own safety, if not the public well-being. But after 25 years personally at the time, and as of 2008 half a century in Essex Junction in general, I sure as Hell expected a little more than "Are you still here? Shoo, we don't want you anymore, shoo, begone."
The line in the chorus, "He doesn't need her now at all the way that she needs him," that's Essex Junction's relationship with IBM in one sentence. IBM can tell Essex Junction whatever lies and broken promises it wants. And let me tell you, it certainly does hurt to feel like such a fool.
Thanks, Dan, for the memories. Your music was part of the soundtrack of my childhood. I wish I had some of your stuff on the computer, but I've only got one CD and two cassettes (yes, cassettes), and no memory to store them in.