“Not something I was proud about”: The song Linda Ronstadt was disappointed singing
Most people need to spend years developing their specific vocal style. No one wakes up sounding like Freddie Mercury, so it’s important to spend that time honing your craft before being comfortable enough to deliver it to millions of listeners on record. But even when she was well beyond any other singer in her field, there were certain pieces Linda Ronstadt sang that never sat well with her.
Then again, listening to Ronstadt for more than a few minutes should tell you that she didn’t have a damn thing to worry about. Her voice was one of the few female voices in the California rock scene that could hang with the other harmony singers of her day, but listening to a lot of her material that she played with Eagles, Ronstadt was never concerned with only being the gentle balladeer like every other pop singer that came before her.
Joni Mitchell may have shown everyone the lighter side of rock and roll at the time, but Ronstadt was the encapsulation of everyone from Dolly Parton to Tina Turner all rolled up into one. She could make a song that could break someone’s heart, but she could tell someone off when she wanted, and when she wrapped her voice around tunes like ‘When Will I Be Loved’, she had the kind of range that could tear any barroom apart.
But it took a few years for her to truly hone her craft. The Stone Poneys were only ever going to be a breeding ground for her sound, and by the time she did strike out on her own, a lot of her records didn’t have the same kind of punch as they should have. Silk Purse was a fantastic album for what it was, but considering the album cover featured her unironically in a pigsty with a bunch of livestock around her, it’s not like anyone anticipated something like Heart Like A Wheel coming.
She had gone through her time as an up-and-coming artist, but once she teamed up with Peter Asher, everything started to fall into place. There were appearances by members of Eagles and a track list of the greatest songwriters in the world at the time, but for all of its gusto, Ronstadt remembered that the song ‘You’re No Good’ wasn’t exactly the first impression that she wanted to make right out of the gate.
“I didn’t care for the way I sang ‘You’re No Good’. I didn’t think the vocal was any good. I remember being disappointed in that, so its success was a false success for me.”
Linda Ronstadt
While the song itself is a fine helping of R&B, all Ronstadt hears is the sound of a woman trying her best to get through the track, saying, “I didn’t care for the way I sang ‘You’re No Good’. I didn’t think the vocal was any good. I remember being disappointed in that, so its success was a false success for me. The success of ‘You’re No Good’ was not something I was proud about, but rather was something I was so disappointed in.”
Given how much punch she puts into the record, though, some of those blemishes are hardly a bad thing. The whole point of the song is telling someone off for treating her like trash, so a few rough spots in her vocal performance practically put everyone in the room with her as she talks about finally getting the courage to drop him like a bad habit.
Is it anywhere close to her performance on ‘Heart Like A Wheel’ or even her collaborations with Eagles? Absolutely not, but it was never supposed to be. It was supposed to kick the record off with a bang, and while musical enthusiasts might listen to the song and here some sore spots, every broken heart listening will know exactly what she is going through.
