From Overnight Sensation to hit record

Eric Carmen, the American singer-songwriter who has died, aged 74, is best known in Britain for the 1975 hit single ‘All By Myself’.

Personally, I always considered it a bit of a dirge and never liked it.

Far better, in my view, is the lost classic he wrote and recorded with the Raspberries, the band he was in before he went solo.

Released in September 1974, ‘Overnight Sensation (Hit Record)’ is one of my all-time favourite pop songs.

Described by one critic as an ‘epic-scale production number about the thrill of hearing your song on the radio’, it was a minor hit in America and Canada but not the UK, although I remember it getting some air play.

Another critic called it a “mini-symphony packed into a five minute song" that is "overflowing with vocals, percussion, guitars, drums, saxophones, pianos, you name it”.

It’s definitely one of those tracks where they threw the kitchen sink at the production.

At one point there’s even a few bars where it sounds like the song is being played on a tinny transistor radio.

Towards the end the song appears to be fading to a gentle, piano-led conclusion before the drums come crashing back in and the rousing chorus is resumed.

Some years ago I bought Greatest, a 2005 compilation album by the Raspberries, who recorded four albums between 1971 and 1974.

Nothing on it comes close to ‘Overnight Sensation’ which captures perfectly the yearning for a chart-topping record and it’s one of the few pop songs I have never grown tired of hearing.

According to Carmen, speaking on stage during a reunion tour in 2004, the record company refused to release the song under the title ‘Hit Record’ because they felt it was “way too presumptuous” so they changed it to the “much less presumptuous” ‘Overnight Sensation’.

Ironically he did have a genuine, incontestable, hit record the following year with the maudlin ‘All By Myself’, but this is the song I’ll remember him for.

Play it LOUD!