You Light Up My Life 2/6/20

Today, I will take an extremely unpopular stand and declare that "You Light Up My Life" is a "Great Song of the '70s."

There's a lot to cover, so please bear with me.

The song ALMOST ruined the career of (Kvitka) Kasey Cisyk, and LITERALLY ruined the career of Debby Boone (Pat's daughter). Debby, through no fault of her own, was a victim of overexposure.

But what happened to Kasey was far worse.

Here's the story: Composer/Screenwriter/Director Joseph Brooks wrote the song for the soundtrack of his 1977 movie of the same name, starring Didi Conn. Brooks felt Didi wasn't a strong enough singer, so he recruited Kasey to record it so Didi could lip-sync to it. Brooks also promised her a small part in the film.

The song was released as a single, but was credited to "The Original Cast," and not Kasey herself. It reached #80 on the Top 100...and then the S**t hit the fan.

After Kasey rebuffed unwanted sexual advances by Brooks, he not only tried to evade paying her, he refused to speak to her again, while secretly commissioning a re-do with Debby Boone.

Debby has said that Brooks not only wanted her to sing it, he wanted her to imitate every inflection from the original recording...using the exact same instrumental track because he didn't want to pay to re-record the orchestra.

Kasey then sued Brooks for the fees she had earned for her work on the record, and for credit on the soundtrack. Luckily, she won, and was able to move on to success in several diverse musical areas, including opera, Ukrainian folk music and jingle singing.

At first, Debby enjoyed incredible success. Her version of the song skyrocketed to #1 on Billboard's Hot 100...and stayed there for 10 weeks---a record that stood until 1992, when Boyz II Men broke it with "End of the Road." In the U.S., It became the biggest selling song of the entire decade. It was also Canada's top seller for 1977, where it was also #1 for several weeks.

It won the Oscar, the Golden Globe, and a Grammy. (Kasey, of course, received no credit for any of this.)

Debby won the Grammy for Best New Artist.

Unfortunately, radio stations played the song ad nauseum, and by the time it fell off the chart, people were so sick of the song, they never wanted to hear it again. They wrongfully blamed it on Debby, and she became the biggest one-hit wonder of all time.

In 2009, Joseph Brooks was arrested on 91 counts of sexual assault, and committed suicide before he could be tried.

The only person who got out of the whole thing unharmed, was Didi Conn...who went on to play Frenchy in "Grease," and starred as Denise on "Benson" and Stacy Jones on Public Television's "Shining Time Station."

But now, after all this time, I think it's time to revisit the song. You may disagree--and feel free to comment-- but I believe (as Debby did) that the lyrics are quite spiritual, the melody is pretty, and it builds to a wonderful conclusion. It's a Great Song!

Here is Debby's version:

And for the record, here's Kasey's version, with

Didi lip syncing.