No More Looking for Love

Listen to the song here
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This one's by Rick Astley.

"Rick?" you're going to say. "Man, I was young when his songs were coming out. I forgot about his existence decades ago."

Well, someone told me recently that a lot of old songs from the 70s and 80s can actually be better than modern music. So I'm partially playing this for him.

I'm also in a state where I've just found a good singer and am now perpetually determined to listen to their songs. There's a big 2018 throwback happening here. You may remember that after I played the song "River" and found that a lot of people were listening to it, I proceeded to play several more of Josh Groban's songs on my YouTube channel. Well, guess what? Now, after this one, you'll be getting new posts of Rick's songs every week!

Oh. You don't want that. I'll only play them every 2 weeks, then. To extend the parallel even further, my computer is attempting to correct me on the spelling of Astley like it did for the spelling of Groban back in 2018.

That's where the comparison stops, though. "River" had just come out weeks before my cover was recorded. Today's song was on Rick's first album that was released in 1987. So I'm also playing it for another someone who asks me on a regular basis, "Were you listening to songs from the 80s again?" 

Speaking of 1987, did you ever think about how that was exactly 35 years ago? You're not the only one to notice. Apparently, the CD of that album was just re-released to celebrate that it's been 35 years. Once I heard that, I was determined. If I'm going to play Rick Astley songs, I might as well get rolling and do it now. So, if Rick is celebrating, one could argue that I'm playing this song for him, too.

We're done, right? Now that we've added Rick himself to the list, there couldn't be anyone else I'm playing it for, right? Unfortunately, I have to tell you that you forgot someone.

You forgot Liya.

Maybe after all my years of studying classical music and all my years in jazz bands, I'm supposed to be on another level in which I don't like these 80s songs. But that doesn't change the fact that I actually like them. (In fact, if you want to hear a little bit of music theory, I noticed while learning this song that it's in the key of F, but it's using notes from the Bb major scale. That bears a striking resemblance to a lot of jazz and blues tunes that I've played. Maybe I'm not falling too far from the tree.)

What I haven't said yet is that I'm playing this song for myself. And I'm playing it for you, the person who's listening to this recording, so that you can keep filling your teacup with music.

~Liya