What a Fool Believes

I decided to write about What a Fool Believes, and then remembered that I'd noted its title as a a draft possibility of a song to write about twice before in the last 15 years.

I've never been able to make up my mind about it. I'm not sure there's another song that I both like and dislike so much at the same time.

I remember there were a few Michael McDonald songs that used to get a fair amount of airplay on Capital and Virgin in the 80s and 90s - On My Own, I Keep Forgetting, Yah Mo B There, Sweet Freedom, and I didn't like any of them, and I didn't like his voice. I couldn't work out quite what it was meant to achieve. I guess they were called blue-eyed soul and yacht rock, and I didn't like either of those things. 

That's how I felt when I first What a Fool Believes. In fact I probably disliked it, initially, more than the rest. But not for long.

First of all, though, who is the song by? It was co-written by Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald, and, in fact, Loggins released his version first, but it's the McDonald version which is the classic one, though, in fact, it's not credited as Michael McDonald, it's the Doobie Brothers, who he was singing for.

There are a few other versions going about. When I first thought to myself "I like this song, but i wonder if there's some better version without the bits I struggle with", i discovered there was an Aretha Franklin version, but in fact, that's not good at all, far too 80s.

After quietly deciding, in around 2000, that I actually quite liked this song, I remember playing it to my flatmates Alex and John. This was NOT the kind of thing we were into, so I knew I was exposing myself to ridicule, and sure enough, the united response was "Jesus, that's awful" and we did not get to the end of the song and the moment was not spoken of again.

I should note that there are loads of cheesy soft-rock anthems I comfortably enjoy unambiguously now, but my slight uneasiness with What a Fool Believes remains.

And yet I have returned to it down the years.

I've been talking around the song, rather than talking about it, so far. What's the bad bit? What's the good bit?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKYQNtF11eg&list=RDqKYQNtF11eg&start_radio=1

The answer's quite simple, for me. The "bad bit", the bit I've never been able to fully get over, is the start, the plinky plonky intro, almost like a a child's toy, so time-dated and hard to take seriously, then even the over-involved opening verse 

"tryin' hard to recreate what had yet to be created; once in her life she musters a smile for his nostalgic tale". 

Oof, it feels pretty cumbersome, both lyrically and melodically.

But then, the good bit, the song transitions to something magical. Apparently, that's the bit Kenny Loggins had at the start of the songwriting process, where the vocalist goes to their upper range "She had a place in his life, he never made her think twice", a lovely mid-verse hook.

And, then, the bit I really love, a lightning-in-a-bottle piece of brilliant songwriting/performance.

The song settles, drops, again

"As he rises to her apology ..."

There are so many things I love about the next few seconds of the song 

- the fluency, the fact that each line follows on perfectly from the next, but increases the stakes, the drama and the universality.

- the actual wisdom of it. How many songs are such a gentle, but profound, admonition, of a man in what i believe the kids call the "friend zone", topped off by its own little epigram "what a fool believes he sees no wise man has the power to reason away"? Alright, Confucius! [i should say, for years, I thought it was ""the" wise man" not "no wise man", which can be made to mean roughly the same thing, but "no wise man ..." is definitely better ...

- and McDonald's vocal, which really comes in its own here. It has a kindness and a world-weary sweetness to it here, an older brother admitting he's been the fool himself and trying to stop the subject from making a fool of himself. Of course, alongside that, the song only works, the hook only takes hold because McDonald has spectacular range.

So, there we go, What a Fool Believes - there's a section of it which I genuinely think is one of the best sections of music and lyrics that exists, but I can never quite escape from the cheesy backdrop*. No wise man has the power to reason it away.

* this reminds me a bit of Firework by Katy Perry, which has a terrible, nondescript verse which, as far as i'm concerned, serves only to set up the monster chorus ...