CAKE

MELANIE MARTINEZ

SONGWRITERS: MELANIE MARTINEZ; CHRISTOPHER J. BARAN & KARA DIOGUARDI

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: CRY BABY

LABEL: ATLANTIC RECORDS

GENRE: INDIE

YEAR: 2015

 

           Melanie Adele Martinez(born April 28, 1995) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, director, photographer, screenwriter, and visual artist. Born in Astoria, Queens, and raised in Baldwin, New York, Martinez rose to prominence in 2012 after appearing on the American television vocal talent show The Voice. Following the show, she released her debut single "Dollhouse", followed by her debut EP of the same name(2014), through Atlantic Records.

        Martinez later released her debut studio album, Cry Baby(2015), which went on to be certified double-platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Martinez's songs "Sippy Cup", "Mad Hatter", "Mrs. Potato Head", "Cry Baby", "Pacify Her" and "Soap", were all certified gold in the U.S., and her songs "Dollhouse" and "Pity Party" received platinum certification from the RIAA.

        Martinez released her second studio album, K-12(2019), alongside its accompanying film, as a follow up to the storyline of Cry Baby. Her EP was released a year later in 2020, called After School.

           Cry Baby is the debut studio album by American singer and songwriter Melanie Martinez. It was released on August 14, 2015, by Atlantic Records through digital download, CD, vinyl and audio cassette. The album was supported by the release of three singles. Two singles preceded the album's release: lead single "Pity Party", was released on June 2, 2015, while the second single, "Soap", was released on July 10, 2015. The third and final single from the album, "Sippy Cup" was released July 31, 2015. Cry Baby is a visual concept album. The album is labeled as na alternative pop, electropop, and indie pop release, and received generally positive reviews from critics. In 2021 the album was certified double platinum, after earning 2 million album-equivalent units (sales, streaming, and track sales).

On November 25, 2016, Martinez released an EP titled Cry Baby's Extra Clutter. The EP, released exclusively on vinyl, consisted of the three bonus tracks from Cry Baby, and "Gingerbread Man", which was released on December 23, 2015, as a single. The album was promoted by the Cry Baby Tour (2015–2017).

Your skin is warm like an oven

Your kiss is sugary sweet

Your fingers feel like cotton

When you put your arms around me

 

I feel like I'm just missing

Something whenever you leave

We've got all the ingredients

Except you loving me

And respectfully

 

I'm not a piece of cake

For you to just discard

While you walk away

With the frosting of my heart

So I'm taking back what's mine, you'll miss

The slice of heaven that I gave to you last night

 

You smell just like vanilla

You taste like buttercream

You're filling up my senses

With empty calories

 

I feel like I'm just missing

Something whenever you leave

You've got all the ingredients

Except you needing me

So respectfully

 

I'm not a piece of cake

For you to just discard

While you walk away

With the frosting of my heart

So I'm taking back what's mine, you'll miss

The slice of heaven that I gave to you last night

 

If I am just a piece of cake

I am just a piece of cake (cake)

Then, you're just a piece of meat

You're just a piece of meat to me

 

If I am just a piece of cake

I am just a piece of cake (cake)

Then, you're just a piece of meat

You're just a piece of meat to me

 

I'm not a piece of cake

For you to just discard

While you walk away

With the frosting of my heart

So I'm taking back what's mine, you'll miss

The slice of heaven that I gave to you last night

 

The slice of heaven that I gave

Sli-li-li-ce of heaven that I gave to you

Slice of heaven that I gave to you last night.

HOLE IN MY HEART

CYNDI LAUPER

SONGWRITER: RICHARD ORANGE

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: N NIGHT TO REMEMBER

LABEL: EPIC RECORDS

GENRE: POP ROCK

YEAR: 1989

 

        Cynthia Ann Stephanie Lauper Thornton(born June 22, 1953) is an American singer, songwriter, actress, and activist. Her career has spanned over 40 years. Her album She's So Unusual(1983) was the first debut album by a female artist to achieve four top-five hits on the Billboard Hot 100—"Girls Just Want to Have Fun", "Time After Time", "She Bop", and "All Through the Night"—and earned Lauper the Best New Artist award at the 27th Annual Grammy Awards in 1985. Her success continued with the soundtrack for the motion picture The Goonies and her second record True Colors (1986). This album included the number one single "True Colors" and "Change of Heart", which peaked at number three. In 1989, she had a hit with "I Drove All Night".

          Since 1983, Lauper has released eleven studio albums and participated in many other projects. In 2010, Memphis Blues became Billboard's most successful blues album of the year, remaining at number one on the Billboard Blues Albums chart for 13 consecutive weeks. In 2013, she won the Tony Award for best original score for composing the Broadway musical Kinky Boots, making her the first woman to win the category by herself. The musical was awarded five other Tonys including Tony Award for Best New Musical. In 2014, Lauper was awarded the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album for the cast recording. In 2016, the West End production won Best New Musical at the Olivier Awards.

     Lauper has sold over 50 million records worldwide. She has won awards at the Grammys, Emmys, Tonys, the New York's Outer Critics Circle, MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs), Billboard Awards, and American Music Awards(AMAs). An inductee into both the Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Lauper is one of the few singers to win three of the four major American entertainment awards. She won the inaugural Best Female Video prize at the 1984 VMAs for "Girls Just Want to Have Fun". This music video is recognized by MTV, VH1 and Rolling Stone as one of the greatest music videos of the era. She is featured in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's Women Who Rock exhibit. Her debut album is included in Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, while "Time After Time" is included in VH1's list of the 100 Best Songs of the Past 25 years. VH1 has ranked Lauper Nº 58 of the 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll.

     Lauper is known for her distinctive image, featuring a variety of hair colors and eccentric clothing, and for her powerful and distinctive four-octave singing range. She has been celebrated for her humanitarian work, particularly as an advocate for LGBT rights in the United States. Her charitable efforts were acknowledged in 2013 when she was invited as a special guest to attend U.S. President Barack Obama's second-term inauguration.

          A Night to Remember is the third studio album by American recording artist Cyndi Lauper. The album was supposed to be released in 1988, under the name Kindred Spirit but was delayed until 1989 and the songs from the initial project were reworked. Even though the album managed to get a top 10 hit single and sell 1.3 million copies worldwide by the end of 1989 it was seen as a disappointment by her record company. The album was met with mixed-to-poor reviews and in interviews Lauper refers to it as A Night to Forget.

I've got a ticket, no turning back

My destination,

The sea of trouble, the land of pain

You're sending me where it always rains

Oh reconsider, I'm begging you, some hesitation

I'm holding on to my sanity

I feel the beginning of emergency

My hands are slipping, oh please don't let me fall into

 

This hole in my heart that goes all the way to china

You gotta fill it up with love before I fall inside of,

This empty hole in my heart that goes all the way to China

And though you can't see the bottom, believe me it's a long way down

 

I'm on a planet without a plan

It's oh so lonely

I need to see you to get out of here

There's something deadly in this atmosphere

I'm in a desert, without a drink of your sweet water

You're my oasis in the burning sand

I'm out of danger when you touch my hand

Throw me a lifeline, I'm standing on the edge of

 

This hole in my heart that goes all the way to china

You gotta fill it up with love before I fall inside of,

This empty hole in my heart that goes all the way to China

And though you can't see the bottom, believe me it's a long way down

 

The gun was loaded, I didn't know

I pulled the trigger,

I heard a noise then the room went dark

I felt the bullet going in my heart

I feel so dizzy, oh please don't let me fall, don't leave me in

 

This hole in my heart that goes all the way to china

You gotta fill it up with love before I fall inside of,

This empty hole in my heart that goes all the way to China

And though you can't see the bottom, believe me it's a long way down

 

I've got a hole in my heart

You've got to fill it up with love.

DRAW OF THE CARDS

KIM CARNES

SONGWRITERS: KIM CARNES; BILL CUOMO; VAL CHRISTIAN GARAY & DAVE ELLINGSON

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: MISTAKEN IDENTITY

LABEL: EMI AMERICA

GENRE: POP ROCK

YEAR: 1981

 

           Kim Carnes(/kɑːrnz/; born July 20, 1945) is an American singer and songwriter. Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, she began her career as a songwriter in the 1960s, writing for other artists while performing in local clubs and working as a session background singer with the famed Waters sisters (featured in the documentary 20 Feet from Stardom). After she signed her first publishing deal with Jimmy Bowen, she released her debut album Rest on Me in 1971. Carnes' self-titled second album primarily contained self-penned songs, including her first charting single "You're a Part of Me", which reached No. 35 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart in 1975. In the following year, Carnes released Sailin', which featured "Love Comes from Unexpected Places". The song won the American Song Festival and the award for Best Composition at the Tokyo Song Festival in 1976.

           In her breakthrough year, 1980, Carnes was commissioned by Kenny Rogers to co-write the songs for his concept album Gideon(1980), and their duet "Don't Fall in Love with a Dreamer" hit Nº 4 on the Billboard Hot 100, and earned the duo a Grammy Award nomination. Later that year, her cover of Smokey Robinson's "More Love", from her fifth album Romance Dance(1980), hit Nº 10. The following year, Carnes released Mistaken Identity, which featured the worldwide hit, "Bette Davis Eyes". This became the best-selling single of the year in the United States, spending nine weeks at Nº 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, going Gold, and won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Mistaken Identity went to Nº 1 on the Billboard 200, was certified Platinum, and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

           Carnes also saw success with the singles "Draw of the Cards" (Nº 28), "Does It Make You Remember" (Nº 36), "Crazy in the Night (Barking at Airplanes)" (Nº 15), "Make No Mistake, He's Mine" (Nº 51), with Barbra Streisand, "What About Me?" (Nº 15), with Kenny Rogers and James Ingram, "I'll Be Here Where the Heart Is", from the Flashdance soundtrack, and the Grammy Award nominated singles "Voyeur" (Nº 29) and "Invisible Hands" (Nº 40). Her other successes as a songwriter include co-writing the Nº 1 duet "The Heart Won't Lie" with Donna Weiss(who had co-written "Bette Davis Eyes" with Jackie DeShannon), which was recorded by Vince Gill and Reba McEntire, and released on McEntire's 1993 album It's Your Call.

Her distinctive, raspy vocal style has drawn comparisons to Rod Stewart. Her most recent studio album is Chasin' Wild Trains(2004). As of 2017, Carnes was residing in Nashville, Tennessee, where she continues to write music.

            "Draw of the Cards" is a 1981 single release from Kim Carnes's Platinum-plus Mistaken Identity album.

             The single reached #28 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1981. Tampa Bay Times contributor Kevin Wuench felt that the song has a "great '80s synth sound." Music critic Colin Larkin described the song as having a "contagious, swirling organ-dominated sound." Viacom ranked "Draw of the Cards" as Carnes' 10th best song, stating that it was "just as intoxicating in its creepiness" as Carnes' previous single, "Bette Davis Eyes."

         The music video was directed by Russell Mulcahy, who had also directed the video for "Bette Davis Eyes." According to Wuench, the video "has some weird carnival activities and one long tongue by some creature of the underworld."

               The song failed to match the chart success of its predecessor, "Bette Davis Eyes", stopping short of the Top 20 in many of the countries where her previous hit had reached pole position.

Sleight of hand

Hands of Fate

Chance you take

Life's a snake

And it's all in the draw of the cards

Lightnin' strike

Breath of life

Red black or white

Watch 'em fall

And it's all in the draw of the cards

And it's all in the draw of the cards

Drop the cards

Watch the eyes

Down and dirty

Let 'em ride

Boulevard

Small cafe

Cavaliers

Pass the day

The joker laughs

From the street

Weaves his web

Bittersweet

Ace is high

Deuce is low

Take the first

The rest should go

And it's all in the draw of the cards

And it's all in the draw of the cards.

THINGS HAVE CHANGED

BOB DYLAN

SONGWRITER: BOB DYLAN

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: WONDER BOYS – MUSIC FROM THE MOTION PICTURE

LABEL: COLUMBIA RECORDS

GENRE: ROCK

YEAR: 2000

 

          Robert Dylan(born Robert Allen Zimmerman; May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, author and visual artist. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career spanning 60 years. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when songs such as "Blowin' in the Wind"(1963) and "The Times They Are a-Changin'"(1964) became anthems for the civil rights and anti-war movements. His lyrics during this period incorporated a range of political, social, philosophical, and literary influences, defying pop music conventions and appealing to the burgeoning counterculture.

            Following his self-titled debut album in 1962, which mainly comprised traditional folk songs, Dylan made his breakthrough as a songwriter with the release of The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan the following year. The album features "Blowin' in the Wind" and the thematically complex "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". Many of his songs adapted the tunes and phraseology of older folk songs. He went on to release the politically charged The Times They Are a-Changin' and the more lyrically abstract and introspective Another Side of Bob Dylan in 1964. In 1965 and 1966, Dylan drew controversy when he adopted electrically amplified rock instrumentation, and in the space of 15 months recorded three of the most important and influential rock albums of the 1960s: Bringing It All Back Home(1965), Highway 61 Revisited(1965) and Blonde on Blonde(1966). His six-minute single "Like a Rolling Stone"(1965) expanded commercial and creative boundaries in popular music.

         In July 1966, a motorcycle accident led to Dylan's withdrawal from touring. During this period, he recorded a large body of songs with members of the Band, who had previously backed him on tour. These recordings were released as the collaborative álbum The Basement Tapes in 1975. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Dylan explored country music and rural themes in John Wesley Harding(1967), Nashville Skyline(1969), and New Morning (1970). In 1975, he released Blood on the Tracks, which many saw as a return to form. In the late 1970s, he became a born-again Christian and released a series of albums of contemporary gospel music before returning to his more familiar rock-based idiom in the early 1980s. Dylan's 1997 album Time Out of Mind marked the beginning of a renaissance for his career. He has released five critically acclaimed albums of original material since then, the most recent being Rough and Rowdy Ways(2020). He also recorded a series of three albums in the 2010s comprising versions of traditional American standards, especially songs recorded by Frank Sinatra. Dylan has toured continuously since the late 1980s on what has become known as the Never Ending Tour.

          Since 1994, Dylan has published eight books of drawings and paintings, and his work has been exhibited in major art galleries. He has sold more than 125 million records, making him one of the best-selling musicians of all time. He has received numerous awards, including the Medal of Freedom, ten Grammy Awards, a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award. Dylan has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. The Pulitzer Prize Board in 2008 awarded him a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power". In 2016, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition".

A worried man with a worried mind

No one in front of me and nothing behind

There's a woman on my lap and she's drinking champagne

Got white skin, got assassin's eyes

I'm looking up into the sapphire tinted skies

I'm well dressed, waiting on the last train

Standing on the gallows with my head in a noose

Any minute now I'm expecting all hell to break loose

People are crazy and times are strange

I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range

I used to care, but things have changed

This place ain't doing me any good

I'm in the wrong town, I should be in Hollywood

Just for a second there I thought I saw something move

Gonna take dancing lessons do the jitterbug rag

Ain't no shortcuts, gonna dress in drag

Only a fool in here would think he's got anything to prove

Lotta water under the bridge, lotta other stuff too

Don't get up gentlemen, I'm only passing through

People are crazy and times are strange

I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range

I used to care, but things have changed

I've been walking forty miles of bad road

If the bible is right, the world will explode

I've been trying to get as far away from myself as I can

Some things are too hot to touch

The human mind can only stand so much

You can't win with a losing hand

Feel like falling in love with the first woman I meet

Putting her in a wheel barrow and wheeling her down the street

People are crazy and times are strange

I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range

I used to care, but things have changed

I hurt easy, I just don't show it

You can hurt someone and not even know it

The next sixty seconds could be like an eternity

Gonna get lowdown, gonna fly high

All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie

I'm love with a woman who don't even appeal to me

Mr. Jinx and Miss Lucy, they jumped in the lake

I'm not that eager to make a mistake

People are crazy and times are strange

I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range

I used to care, but things have changed.