I Pretend by Kim Carnes

Album: Café Racers (1983)

Charted: 74

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Songfacts®:

This song is a heartbreaker, with Carnes singing about how she lost her man, and now all she can do to comfort herself is to pretend they are still together. The song was written by Brian Fairweather and Martin Page, who had a group called Q-Feel. In our interview with Page, he explained that the song did not come from personal experience, since at the time he didn't put himself in his lyrics (this changed with his first solo single "In the House of Stone and Light").

"'I Pretend' was a ripoff of me listening to the Pointer Sisters," he explained. "In fact, I took it to Planet Records where the Pointer Sisters were. There was an interest in it, but it didn't sell any seats."
Page and Fairweather got the attention of Kim Carnes' label boss Gary Gersh with their song "Dancing In Heaven (Orbital Be-Bop)," which got a lot of airplay on the Los Angeles radio station KROQ. When he heard their demo of "I Pretend," he played it over the phone for Carnes, who loved it. Gersh arranged for the trio to work together, which resulted in three songs from her Café Racers album: "You Make My Heart Beat Faster (And That's All That Matters)," "I Pretend," and "Invisible Hands." All three made the Hot 100. A few years later, Page offered Carnes another song he wrote: "These Dreams." She passed, and that one became a #1 hit for Heart.

Comments: 1

Canuck Guy from CanadaI can definitely hear the "Pointer Sister" rip-off from one of the Pointer Sisters hits, "He's So Shy"! (As Brian Fairweather himself put it) Good song tho'! Funny that the Sisters weren't keen on it. It would've sounded good on them. I like Kim's version. As a sidebar, it makes me wonder about the George Harrison alleged rip-off of "He's So Fine" by the Chiffons when he recorded "My Sweet Lord". Yes, I see the similarities, but it's in the pop music category not classical! You could say the same over the Beach Boys "Fun, Fun, Fun!" for ripping off a Chuck Berry tune! That's just two examples and I know there are hundreds!

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