Songfacts®:

• A year after covering the standard "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter," Barry Manilow is trying to pen another epistle on his 1983 single "Read 'Em And Weep." This time around, he attempts a goodbye letter to an ex-lover but struggles to come up with the right words to reflect his anger and sadness over the breakup.
  
  Written and produced by Jim Steinman, it originally appeared on Meat Loaf's 1981 album, Dead Ringer. Manilow popularized it when he recorded a version with slightly altered lyrics for his Greatest Hits Vol. II album.
• Manilow is a composer in his own right, but most of his hit songs are covers of other people's tunes. He credited Clive Davis, who was the head of Arista Records, for being his "commercial ear" and getting him on the charts. But a decade of churning out hits written by other songwriters was starting to weigh on the singer by the time he recorded Steinman's "Read 'Em And Weep." He recalled in his 1987 autobiography, Sweet Life:
  
  "When I listened to it, I felt proud of my interpretation, but once again, there was an emptiness about singing a song I hadn't written. I felt especially distant from this record because, due to the craziness of the tour, I hadn't even been able to produce or arrange the song."
• Although the single performed well (it was his 25th and final Top 40 hit on the Hot 100), Manilow's feelings about the song made him re-evaluate his approach to music. Instead of allowing Davis to choose songs for him, he determined to record whatever he wanted. The decision informed his next album, 2:00 AM Paradise Café, a collection of original torch songs featuring veteran jazz musicians.
• Meat Loaf wasn't impressed with Manilow's version of the song and let him know it… eventually. "Barry knows what I think about his version of that song. I met him six times before telling him what I thought," he told music historian Michael Cavacini. "I said, 'Barry, you have to know how to sing a Jim Steinman song.' One time, Barry was on Johnny Carson, down on his knees singing the song. He tried to bring out the dramatic elements of the song but it just didn't work. And he knew it didn't work. He told me, 'That's why I don't sing it live.'"
  
  Manilow did perform the song in concert, though. He noted in Sweet Life: "As a performer, I was really able to sink my teeth into it. But it was emotionally draining for me each night, because I was feeling so ambiguous about its success."
• This was also Manilow's 13th and final #1 hit on the Adult Contemporary chart.
• In 1983, the album was certified Platinum in the US for one million copies sold.