Tracy Chapman "Give Me One Reason"

Album: New Beginning (Elektra; 1996)
Songwriters: Tracy Chapman
R&B Peak Position: #35

"This youthful heart can love you/ And give you what you need"

Beyond hardcore fans, not too many people were checking for a new Tracy Chapman album by the mid-nineties. The folk/ soul singer-songwriter with the minimalist quiver of a voice and message-heavy songbook had become an industry sensation and college-age staple after the release of her 1988 eponymous debut and it's somber, poverty-themed breakaway smash, "Fast Car". But while successive albums featured some strong lyrical moments, her at-once fresh sound had started to feel suffocatingly predictable and their accompanying album sales and critical acclaim wouldn't come close to matching the overwhelming hurrah that arrived with her intro LP. With the release of one surprise of a 1996 single, Chapman would soon be sitting on the tip of everyone's tongue again and making a swift return to her previous multi-platinum heights.

The single was "Give Me One Reason", a winning exercise in traditional 12-bar blues form that stuck out like a sore thumb when compared to everything else that was deemed popular in the music world at the time.

As slinky chords and a steady-paced drum base magically teleport the listener to an old, smoke-filled nightspot, Chapman's distinctive deep alto paints the frustrations of a one-sided romance. Through signature blues repetitive phrases, she pushes her craving for some kind of sign that her partner cherishes their union as much as she ("Give me one reason to stay here/ And I'll turn right back around..."). "I don't wanna leave you lonely," she admits, but her target seems unable to provide a satisfiable response. With such a cold demeanor leaving her feeling more and more foolish for being so openly vulnerable, she eventually decides, to her dismay, that a complete exit from the situation is her only option. "I'm too old to go chasing around/ Wasting my precious energy," she concludes.

Grabbing an audience of a variety-hued mega-mass (including many who probably had never given Tracy much thought in the past), "Give Me One Reason" easily landed as the biggest hit of Chapman's career, hitting the Pop and Adult Contemporary Top Five and R&B Top 40 and selling over a million copies alone. It also pushed it's parent album, New Beginning, to five-times platinum status and scored Tracy her fourth Grammy when it triumphed in the Best Rock Song category.

Chapman would never again catch pop lightning in the bottle as she so famously did with "Reason", but to her faithful's delight, her recording career would continue to thrive through many more album releases and tours well into the millennium, with her eighth studio effort, Our Bright Future, dropping in November.

Best Moment: "Reason"'s delectably succinct final couplet: "I told you that I loved you/ And there ain't no more to say".

Tracy Chapman Give Me One Reason
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DL: "Give Me One Reason" (YFH)