Inside Tracks #17: Diane Warren, "Some Hearts"💕w/Covers by Marshall Crenshaw feat. David Lindley, Carrie Underwood, Maria Arredondo
The recent loss of the great David Lindley prompted this look at his work with Marshall Crenshaw, as well as the prodigious songwriting talents of Ms. Diane Warren!
“We did sort of sabotage it, turned it into a hillbilly song.” Marshall Crenshaw (above, right) was telling the L.A. Times in 1991 about hi-jacking Diane Warren’s “Some Hearts” song that, 16 years before Carrie Underwood made it an early-career pop hit, was an album track for him.
One, if not the only, thing that made it a so-called “hillbilly song” was the well-worn and authentic-sounding fiddle performed on Crenshaw’s 1989 album, Good Evening, by the late David Lindley (pictured above). The veteran southern California multi-instrumentalist passed away March 3 at 78.
Fellow Substack music writer, Steve Goldberg, was the first to inform me of this sad news, and he promptly wrote this informative look at a portion of Lindley’s career, on his consistently entertaining Earworms and Song Loops:
With Lindley spending so much of his career molding and influencing the ‘70s southern California rock/folk/pop landscape, I was surprised, if not stunned, at his appearance on this, or any, Marshall Crenshaw song!
As a fan of the decidedly power-pop-friendly, bespectacled Crenshaw since his 1982 debut album, I even enjoyed the 1989 Good Evening album at the time, without even realizing it wasn’t a self-penned tune!
Lindley also played mandolin and slide guitar on Crenshaw’s album. His mastery of many instruments prompted Acoustic Guitar magazine to refer to him, not as a multi-instrumentalist, but as a “maxi-instrumentalist.”
In fact, when the magazine asked him about the difficulty in maintaining technique on any one axe, Lindley simply replied, “Not if you consider them all one instrument. Some are slightly different--frets, no frets, slide--but you look at them as a many-headed dragon, and you slay them all the same way.”
“Some Hearts”: The Vinyl Debut of Another Diane Warren Standout
The fact that Lindley could affect a song to the extent that he did in Crenshaw’s arrangement serves to illustrate his influence on popular music since the late ‘60s, with his Kaleidescope band, and beyond. A fixture on the SoCal music scene for decades, his talent on several stringed instruments made him a busy session player, as well as a welcome accompanist with many backing bands.
Here, Lindley takes a tuneful rocker by a master hit-maker (Diane Warren, shown above), and brings a hoedown fiddle to the song as performed by Crenshaw, a respected tunesmith in his own right, who had proven, long before, his mettle in the pop rock/power pop arena!
Warren, not unlike her male counterpart, fellow mega-hit song-composer, Desmond Child, is a bit picky about how her “babies” are “dressed” or arranged.
Crenshaw, the only male to record Warren’s song, also made some changes to the lyrics, angering Warren:
“I made a couple of changes in the lyrics, and she was really angry at me for doing it. I was on Diane Warren’s (bad) list,” Crenshaw continued, sounding less concerned than bemused. [I’m guessing, though, that there are better lists to be on than the one belonging to the songwriter whose hits have been performed by nearly the entire GRAMMY Rolodex].
“I figure you have a license to do that when you record a song,” Crenshaw concluded.
Only five non-instrumental artists have covered “Some Hearts” in its 34 years, and it’s surprising Crenshaw has been the only male, to go with females, Kelly, Maria, Carrie, and the lead singer of Midday Sun, who put their mark on the tune in June 2012.
That either makes Crenshaw even more of a trendsetter than his recorded output has already hinted at, or the ladies have found a kinship with Diane’s “some hearts get all the breaks” lyrics. Or, that other guys haven’t.
Kelly Levesque & Maria Arredondo
Kelly Levesque (above) was the next to cover “Some Hearts,” doing so in July 2001. Three years later, in November 2004, Norwegian pop singer, Maria Arredondo (shown below…her surname, Arredondo, comes from her Chilean stepfather), rolled the dice on Diane Warren’s disposition, and gave it a shot, recording for Universal/Norway:
Carrie On
In the year between Arredondo’s cover and Carrie Underwood’s recording in November 2005, the blonde from Oklahoma had a life-altering experience thankyouverymuch, so her being tardy to the “Some Hearts” dance can be excused.
In mid-2004, a little thing called American Idol happily interrupted life as the 21-year-old knew it, and nothing’s been the same since.
During the top 11 finalists’ performance on the March 22, 2005, episode of the Fox Network show’s Season 4, Underwood sang “Alone” by Heart, and judge Simon Cowell predicted that Underwood would not only win the competition, but that she would also outsell all previous Idol winners. One of the show’s producers later said she dominated the voting, winning every week by a large margin.
In late May 2005, Carrie became the Season 4 winner, scoring a new car, use of a private jet for a year, and of course, the requisite recording contract with Arista Records. Two weeks later, her debut single, “Inside Your Heaven” (produced by the aforementioned Desmond Child) was released. It couldn’t wait to get to #1, debuting at the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 June 14, 2005.
On November 15, 2005, Underwood released her debut album, Some Hearts, named after the Warren song that’s included. Interestingly, “Some Hearts” was released as a single, but unlike her handful of other songs on the album, was serviced only to pop and AC radio…not country.
Like her corporate move from Arista proper (in New York) to the country division in Nashville, releasing “Some Hearts” (produced by Dann Huff) only to pop and Adult Contemporary was also a conscious decision by her label, apparently sensing Carrie’s treatment of the Warren song just wasn’t “twangy” enough for a rural audience the rest of the album was pitched to.
Since then, Carrie has more than proven her crossover appeal…countless times.
“Some Hearts” eventually reached #12 on the AC chart, and as of June 2011, it had sold 207,000 copies.
If you’re in the Los Angeles area (or planning to be, soon), make your reservations now to see FRONT ROW & BACKSTAGE’s singer/songwriter/guitarist, Stephen Michael Schwartz, in a special evening of original rock’n’pop music, Saturday, April 1!
I am trying to come up with a good nickname for you, something that captures your words width, depth and height. That connotes the speed in which you are able to put together a post in these here digital pages and have it all seem like something written and researched for weeks. Music history's whirling dervish if you will.
It seems, it doesn't matter the artist, you will find their tie to some power-pop icon. I had no idea Lindley played on a Marshall Crenshaw album. Not that it surprises me, considering Lindley was perhaps the ultimate collaborator. Like the quote I used in my piece -- "“I try to keep my ears open when I hear things, and everybody else in the band does the same thing.”
I didn't know "Some Hearts" (yet I do have that Marshall Crenshaw album -- when was the last time I played it? The year it came out maybe.). I'll take a listen to the various versions, even if I am allergic to Carrie Underwood's voice.