All The Time

Album: This One's For You (1976)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • As Barry Manilow's popularity exploded in the mid-'70s, he started receiving lots of fan mail that shared the same theme: loneliness.

    "It seemed to me that so many people were looking for encouragement and some kind of sign that they weren't alone. My music seemed to be giving comfort and solace to so many strangers. I was touched and humbled by their candor and felt a deep connection with many of them," the singer explained in the liner notes of his 1992 anthology, The Complete Collection And Then Some.

    Manilow knew what it was like to feel lonely - even when he was surrounded by people. The feeling only intensified when he became famous, because he still felt like he didn't fit in. Even his music was hard to categorize. He added: "Although the music I made was becoming enormously popular, no one knew how to classify what it was I was doing Pop? Jazz? Rock? I was a musical misfit too!"

    With that in mind, Manilow asked his songwriting partner Marty Panzer to come up with some lyrics about feeling like a misfit, which resulted in "All The Time."

    "It was the first song I had been involved with that reflected my true feelings. The music came quickly and the record was done in no time with ease," Manilow said. All of us feel alone. But we're not. And it takes creations like 'All The Time' to remind us that we're all one."
  • This was included on Manilow's fourth studio album, This One's For You, which featured the hit singles "Weekend In New England" and "Looks Like We Made It."
  • This was used in the 2000 crime movie Five Seconds To Spare, starring Andy Serkis and Ray Winstone.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Does Jimmy Page Worship The Devil? A Look at Satanism in Rock

Does Jimmy Page Worship The Devil? A Look at Satanism in RockSong Writing

We ring the Hell's Bells to see what songs and rockers are sincere in their Satanism, and how much of it is an act.

American Hits With Foreign Titles

American Hits With Foreign TitlesSong Writing

What are the biggest US hits with French, Spanish (not "Rico Suave"), Italian, Scottish, Greek, and Japanese titles?

Part of Their World: The Stories and Songs of 13 Disney Princesses

Part of Their World: The Stories and Songs of 13 Disney PrincessesSong Writing

From "Some Day My Prince Will Come" to "Let It Go" - how Disney princess songs (and the women who sing them) have evolved.

Tim McIlrath of Rise Against

Tim McIlrath of Rise AgainstSongwriter Interviews

Rise Against frontman Tim McIlrath explains the meanings behind some of their biggest songs and names the sci-fi books that have influenced him.

Hawksley Workman

Hawksley WorkmanSongwriter Interviews

One of Canada's most popular and eclectic performers, Hawksley tells stories about his oldest songs, his plentiful side projects, and the ways that he keeps his songwriting fresh.

Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum

Dave Pirner of Soul AsylumSongwriter Interviews

Dave explains how the video appropriated the meaning of "Runaway Train," and what he thought of getting parodied by Weird Al.