Album: Talking Back To The Night (1982)

Charted: 19 9

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• So wild standing there
  With her hands in her hair
  I can't help remember
  Just where she touched me
  There's still no face
  Here in her place
  
  So cool, she was like
  Jazz on a summer's day
  Music, high and sweet
  Then she just blew away
  Now she can't be that warm
  With the wind in her arms
  
  Valerie, call on me
  Call on me, Valerie
  Come and see me
  I'm the same boy I used to be
  
  Love songs fill the night
  But they don't tell it all
  Not how lovers cry out
  Just like they're dying
  Her cries hang there, in time, somewhere
  
  Someday, some good wind
  May blow her back to me
  Some night I may hear
  Her like she used to be
  No, it can't be that warm
  With the wind in her arms
  
  Valerie, call on me
  Call on me, Valerie
  Come and see me
  I'm the same boy I used to be
  
  So cool, she was like
  Jazz on a summer's day
  Music, high and sweet
  Then she just blew away
  Now she can't be that warm
  With the wind in her arms
  
  Valerie, call on me
  Call on me, Valerie
  Come and see me
  I'm the same boy I used to be
  
  I'm the same boy I used to be Writer/s: Steve Winwood, Will Jennings
  Publisher: BMG Rights Management, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Universal Music Publishing Group
  Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Comments: 12

• Dawn O’connor from Wilmington DelawareLove this song
• Mwal from SydneyThis song featured in miami vice
  ...so poignant
  Just ahead of all the rest
• Eighties Has Been from The WestAnd it turned out to be Valerie Carter
• Carla from ArkansasWill Jennings wrote this about Valerie Carter, the same woman Jackson Browne sings about in “That Girl Could Sing”.
• David from Orlando, FlThough I enjoy a lot of Steve Winwood's music, especially from his solo run of success in the 1980's, Valerie stands out, specifically the original 1982 song. The chorus is catchy yet simultaneously poignant while Steve's high-wire passion holds a jazzy tune together in a tight formation. I also enjoy the music video for the original version with special wind effects (in animation form), Steve playing keyboard much of the time, and an actress/model portraying the title character. I really though she effectively captured the complex emotions of Valerie - beautiful, young, innocent, naïve, and plagued by mysterious troubling problems. Kudos as well to lyricist Will Jennings for his witty word usage which blended with Steve's music to deliver song magic time and again during the Winwood solo heyday. According to Wikipedia, Will reportedly based Valerie on singer/songwriter Valerie Carter, whose promising career was plagued be drugs, though she has since graduated from a drug program. Though more people may have enjoyed the remix version in 1987 (along with its updated video), I personally prefer the simpler tune and video that started its running history.
• Steve from Torrance, CaOne of the greatest musical evocations of summer ever written, this is the song that made me a Steve Winwood fan. More than just a song about a long lost love, it's also about nostalgia, sentimentalism, and a longing for the past to return. Before they became weighed down with the burden of celebrity, hipness, and self-consciousness, Will Jennings' lyrics were much more abstract and open to interpretation, like these. It's hard to hear this song without also thinking of the wonderful artwork (credit: Tony Wright) of the Talking Back to the Night album. Love that Mini-Moog! In memory of Valerie Boyens Armstrong
• Claire from Miller's, MdI personally know a Valerie and her name is spelt the same way as the song:)
• Larry from Coral Springs, FlThis song has a great sound and beat. Everytime i hear the name..i think of my fave actress
• Ben from Gosford, AustraliaSteve Winwood has a sexy voice. 'Nuff said.
• Dave from Cardiff, WalesAlthough the song only reached No.51 in the UK ion 1982, in 1987 it was re-released and peaked at No.19. Steve Winwood also had solo Top 20 hits in the UK with "While You See A Chance" and "Night Train", while in the mid-1960s he had 12 UK Top 30 hits as lead singer of The Spencer Davis Group (two of which, "Keep On Running" and "Somebody Help Me" topped the charts in the UK in 1965). After leaving The Spencer Davis Group in the late 1960s, Stevie went on to form the critically acclaimed blues-rock band Traffic, who were hugely successful in Britain in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and, alongside his solo career, with whom Stevie continued to record on-and-off until 1996
• Mark from Ascension Island,so. AtlanticGreat song, I like all of Winwoods songs though...Thanks
• Alan from Singapore, Singapore"Call On Me" was a smash dance track hit in 2004 by Sweden's Eric Prydz. He sampled some lines from "Valerie". It seems that when Steve Winwood heard the remix he thought it was so good, he not only gave his permission to use the samples, he even re-recorded his vocals especially for the track.

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