Love Will Keep Us Together
by Captain & Tennille
Ever thought of a pragmatic love song? You know, a song that sings of a road map to keep love alive long after the violins have stopped playing?
No, not Love Will Keep Us Alive by Eagles. Love Will Keep Us Together, written by Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield, fits the bill.
Recorded by Sedaka in 1973, it was the cover version by Captain & Tennille that was the longest-running Billboard topper for 1975. Check out the lyrics to see why: Love/ Love will keep us together/ Think of me babe, whenever/ Some sweet-talking girl comes along, singing her song/ Don’t mess around, you’ve just got to be strong, just stop/ ‘Cause I really love you, stop/ I’ll be thinking of you/ Look in my heart and let love keep us together....
Toni Tennille tweaked the lyrics to make it appropriate for a girl. In Sedaka’s original, he sings: Think of me babe, whenever/ Some sweet-talking guy comes along/ Singing his song....
It’s one of the rare love songs that recognises the possibility of infidelity before betrayal. And even offers a plan to counter it. While being upbeat about it.
Nothing can be more upbeat than Toni Tennille’s voice. Teaming up with her voice are her fingers on the electric piano. On the synthesiser is her husband, ‘Captain’ Daryl Dragon. Drummer Hal Blaine adds the beats that make the song a banger. The vibe is heady and happy.
And yet, this song has stories that go well beyond its fame and the Grammy it won in 1976.
In 1980, British band Joy Division released Love Will Tear Us Apart, a dark parody of the song. The tragedy was real. Lead vocalist Ian Curtis, who wrote the lyrics, killed himself in May 1980, a month before their song was released. He would have turned 24 in July that year.
Blaine, who was among the most in-demand session drummers at one point in time, having played for everyone from Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra to Simon & Garfunkel and The 5th Dimension, was forced out of business in the 1980s when electronic drumming took over. A divorce settlement cost him most of his wealth, and for a while he had to work as a security guard in Arizona.
Love couldn’t keep Tennille and the ‘Captain’ together. They divorced in 2014, after 39 years of marriage. Dragon died in 2019, the same year as Blaine.
Tennille has spoken of Dragon as emotionally distant — she says in an interview that they got married when “our accountant said you know you could pay a lot less taxes if you were married”.
“I was just this person constantly looking for something he couldn’t give, and that part was wrong,” she says. “But the music, we were right there together.”
Fifty years on, rewind to the music that was right even when the love wasn’t.