"Nobody knows what you want except you, and nobody will be as sorry as you if you don't get it. So don't give up your dreams."
-Barry Manilow-

In the beginning Barry Manilow wanted to be a great jazz artist.  His career has never quite evolved in that direction primarily because his fans have consumed, in large quantities, the lightweight, formulaic drivel he unleashed onto an unsuspecting world throughout the 70s and early 80s.

I was one of those fans.  I was a teen-age Barry Manilow fan.  I say it loud and I say it proud.  And I’ll tell you why.

Actually, why I was a teenage Barry Manilow fan is much more complex than I’ll probably be able to get you to believe.  I would describe the phenomenon as Libido Pitch.  In short, his pitch had an effect on my libido.  Barry Manilow was also someone to stand up for.  He was Underdog personified.

There are many theories about Manilove:  one being the safe, hairless, repressed sexuality of an untouchable icon.   It’s true.  At thirteen, I had not yet entered that seductive door of teen-lust.   Boys were still "sweet" and "cute".

The whole thing started with  that insipid little song "I Can’t Smile Without You".  What I was thinking, I can’t defend.  "This One’s For You" and "Somewhere Down The Road"— these songs can still work me over on some level. But "I Can't Smile Without You"?

"I can’t laugh and I can’t sing/I’m finding it hard to do anything"?

I shudder to think how this co-dependent little ditty has morphed into the concert ritual of yanking a stargazer out of the crowd and boring us all to death with what is evidently a song too torturous to keep singing alone.

In many ways, I did not completely fit the Manilow-fan profile.  I had no friends who liked him.  I didn’t have that typical gun-ho, go-along-ability the other fans had.  I was not the type to swoon.

As time went on, I grew to appreciate the music of Manilow as melodies to feel sorry for yourself by (this requires a great deal of salt water taffy as well) and music to fall in love to. 

On these pages, you'll find links to some of the best Barry Manilow sites on the web, and information on your very own   membership to a Manilow fan club.  (You lucky devil, you.)  Oh.. and don't be surprised if Neil Diamond rears his head in here somewhere.  (You've gotta love the guy.)