Listening to it, I don't think I've heard this song before. I was hitting the dance floors a bit back then, but the melody doesn't strike me as memorable. Or maybe it was the manosphere vibe that prevented me from getting down with it?!
But can I say that the record label at the top is gorgeous.
haha.. the (manosphere)force was exceptional strong with this one 😁 Your reaction, together with @Dan Pal points to something else, I think, Ellen. The fact that it was a huge dancefloor hit in certain clubs yet went nowhere beyond those floors comes through clearly in your responses. The sound that helped it cross over to places like Europe probably made it less appealing to the US market at that moment. Fascinating information for a nerd like me 😁 Thanks for reading and reacting, Ellen. Enjoy your Sunday!
And I agree, Prelude Records had one of the nicest labels. Almost every company used black for their generic 12-inch sleeves. In Prelude’s case, it strengthened the identity of the label and made it instantly recognisable. I’m sure they were not thinking that far ahead when they started, but it certainly helped them in the long run.
I am 55 years old, and, I remember the very first time I heard D-Train's 'You're The One For Me'. It was 1984, and I was 14 years old. My mother was splitting up her second marriage, and I was spending a lot of my time at my 18 year old friend Matthew's house. He had a box set of dance music records, and I was so obsessed with this song, that I must have listened to it dozens of times. Fast forward to adulthood, and, I made sure that D-Train was in my collection of music. Before I was unable to work, I taught art in Philly for ten years, where I played old school 60's, 70's and 80's music for my students while they worked on art projects. When I was 43, I stopped teaching and co-owned a vinyl records and vintage shop with my boyfriend for the last year before I could no longer work. We are both music lovers and collectors of records, CD's, cassettes, DVD's and all kinds of other vintage stuff. D-Train's 'You're The One For Me' will always be one of my forever favorites. Thank you, sincerely, for sharing D-Train's story behind their music.
Thanks for this story, Rachel. I love hearing how people connect with songs like this.
There’s something in this track, maybe the sound more than anything, that I described as “masculine energy”, but “strong energy” is probably a better way to put it. I recognise a lot of my own experience in what you shared, that moment of being completely hooked, when a song becomes part of your life’s soundtrack.
Thanks so much for reading and for sharing your story, and welcome to the feed, Rachel. I’m really glad you’re here. Every week, I dive into the story behind a different dance track.
You're the first person other than myself who I've heard refer to "your life's soundtrack". I'm 55, and my boyfriend is 63, and we both love music. I have a rare connective tissue disorder due to my having a mutated SMAD3 gene, and a diagnosis of Loeys Dietz Syndrome Type 3. I am chronically ill, and have a plethora of serious comorbidities. Part of this is predisposition to aneurysms and dissections at even minimal dilations. I have a dilated Aortic Root Valve which has a dilation of one of three leaflets which puts me in the category of needing valve sparing heart surgery. My vascular surgeon, Dr. Joseph Bavaria, has done over 8000 surgeries and has not lost a patient. However, I am terrified of having this surgery. In the meantime, I exist with a ticking time bomb inside of me that may dissect whenever it feels like doing so. It was left up to me to schedule a date for my surgery. It sounds silly, but, I live for music, art, all the toys and other vintage stuff I have accumulated over the years. I've had a very dysfunctional life, and want to write a book, too. I do not want to die. But, I guess the choice isn't mine to make... Craig and I have so much music, we'd each need two lifetimes to listen to everything we have. I love everything from John Cale to Peter Hamill, from Syl Johnson to Billy Preston. From Secret Weapon to Sly & the Family Stone. From The Art of Noise to Ryuichi Sakamoto. From Peter Gabriel and Genesis Archive to Leslie West and Mountain. There's so much music I love, that, it feels unfair to pick favorites. I used to post 45's on Instagram until one day when they deleted years of posts from my account, and then my Facebook page, too. I have no idea why, but, I blame Meta. So, I was off of social media for a while, and only left with part of my Instagram account which I am now having trouble accessing, and I am glad to have found Substack. Thank you for your kind response, your love of music and your creativity.
This sounds incredibly hard, Rachel, and I truly hope you can get the surgery as soon as possible. I completely understand how music becomes an even more important part of your life in circumstances like these. Music has this unique ability to let us escape reality for a few moments and disappear into something beautiful, comforting and familiar.
Traditional social media can be terrible. I left the whole Meta universe during Covid because the negativity and constant noise had become overwhelming and honestly unhealthy. One of the best decisions I ever made.
Substack feels very different to me. It’s much more compartmentalised, so you can avoid most of the social media junk if you want to, and the community generally feels thoughtful and kind. I’m really glad you found your way here Rachel.
Oh man I loved this deep dive. I love D Train. I love the way you described it all, and the important distinction you made in the intro between songs tied to a specific memory and songs you remember being hit by but without being able to recall the specific context.
I also love how you always so carefully and masterfully navigate sensitive, sometimes even taboo or controversial topics. You have great mastery of tone, Pe. This is one of your greatest strengths (besides your vast knowledge and engaging writing style, of course).
Picture me in shock realising you could be my father 😱 You look so much younger. I'm not numerically gifted, so if you alluded to things or years which gave your age away in your earlier work, I must have missed them, or not made the connection 😂
I love discovering how our tastes are more and more aligned when it comes to certain artists or sounds, particularly, a certain type of R&B we both love. Terrific piece.
Haha… age ain’t nothing but a number, Andy! 😁 Thank you so much for your kind and generous words. They are heartwarming, because writing is a solitary enterprise, as you know, and you never quite know whether what you are aiming for truly comes across. Thanks for reading, sharing, and for your support. It genuinely means a lot. Have a great Sunday!
Even though You're The One For Me reached the Top 30 here in the UK as you mention, the Prelude 12" that really floated my boat at the time was the Kervorkian mix of Sharon Redd's Never Give You Up/ Beat The Street which itself got into the UK Top 20. My background was in rock and then new wave rather than disco, but it was records like this that opened up a world of musical possibilities. Another was You Are In My System which you also mention; I know purists would opt for the original version by The System, but if you're talking about "masculine energy" then it has to be the Robert Palmer cover version; the remix by Dominique Blanc-Francard shook me to the core!
I agree, Paul. Robert Palmer’s version of You Are in My System is the stronger one. That track will get its own episode further down the road, because it was also hugely influential and important.
I share your love for the Sharon Redd remixes as well. I first discovered that work through the Prelude Records double album Master Mixes. The remix of Never Give You Up is probably the one you mean. The production story behind that record is a fascinating one, and definitely another track worth shining a light on in the future.
Aw! You make my Friday night get off to an early start. "Walk on By" was a close second hit on that first record. Saw them "open" for Chic as they were the big dogs on the block that summer.
Then Stuart Price made a meal of it with Les Rythmes Digitaslis in 2000. I still have my "All Access" laminate pass for being "The Runner" at WMC Miami and dealing with all these super star DJs at their peak of indulgence. Couldn't stop the mayhem and some got nabbed and tossed out the club. Anyway, the rest is history but keep this up Pe and the Good Times will be back.
KTU92 used it as their TV commercial theme, wherever it went, it's now buried in our DNA.
Shout out to K-Rob and Rammellzee Beat Bop! I waxed poetic at "the store" today! Remember when Hip Hop and club music were included in the same mix? Those were the salad days!
OK going to try to record a drum track on my used Roland Lit electronic kit I got for my B-day!
Haha… not done yet, Steve. When I first had the idea for this newsletter, I began with a “short” list of songs to cover, and the last count had it somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 titles 😁 At one song a week, that should keep me busy for quite a while.
But the real pleasure of writing these stories is the interaction with you and the other readers, because everyone adds their own memories and stories. So thanks for reading and reacting, Steve. Have a good one!
I was also 18 in 1981 but for some reason I've never heard this song! Granted, I was still a year or two away from being able to hit the clubs. Perhaps it wasn't as big in the U.S. as it was in Europe. It definitely has a futuristic sound that should have made it a staple in the 1980s. I hear sounds in it that remind me of hits by The Gap Band and Shalamar from around the same time. Maybe they were influenced by it. Cool to hear though!
It was a big club record, Dan. It even hit n°1 on the Billboard Dance chart, yet somehow it never crossed over to the pop charts in either Europe or the US. Only in the UK did it break into the Top 40. What’s even more surprising is that it didn’t make a major impact on the R&B charts either.
D Train were really the first to nail this sound. Acts like Gap Band and Shalamar, among others, clearly took inspiration from them.
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts, Dan. Have a great weekend!
Thank you for another great article. Love this song. It brings tears to my eyes because it touches my soul deeply. For many, true love is very hard to get over, my friend.
Listening to it, I don't think I've heard this song before. I was hitting the dance floors a bit back then, but the melody doesn't strike me as memorable. Or maybe it was the manosphere vibe that prevented me from getting down with it?!
But can I say that the record label at the top is gorgeous.
haha.. the (manosphere)force was exceptional strong with this one 😁 Your reaction, together with @Dan Pal points to something else, I think, Ellen. The fact that it was a huge dancefloor hit in certain clubs yet went nowhere beyond those floors comes through clearly in your responses. The sound that helped it cross over to places like Europe probably made it less appealing to the US market at that moment. Fascinating information for a nerd like me 😁 Thanks for reading and reacting, Ellen. Enjoy your Sunday!
And I agree, Prelude Records had one of the nicest labels. Almost every company used black for their generic 12-inch sleeves. In Prelude’s case, it strengthened the identity of the label and made it instantly recognisable. I’m sure they were not thinking that far ahead when they started, but it certainly helped them in the long run.
I am 55 years old, and, I remember the very first time I heard D-Train's 'You're The One For Me'. It was 1984, and I was 14 years old. My mother was splitting up her second marriage, and I was spending a lot of my time at my 18 year old friend Matthew's house. He had a box set of dance music records, and I was so obsessed with this song, that I must have listened to it dozens of times. Fast forward to adulthood, and, I made sure that D-Train was in my collection of music. Before I was unable to work, I taught art in Philly for ten years, where I played old school 60's, 70's and 80's music for my students while they worked on art projects. When I was 43, I stopped teaching and co-owned a vinyl records and vintage shop with my boyfriend for the last year before I could no longer work. We are both music lovers and collectors of records, CD's, cassettes, DVD's and all kinds of other vintage stuff. D-Train's 'You're The One For Me' will always be one of my forever favorites. Thank you, sincerely, for sharing D-Train's story behind their music.
😀👍🏼
Thanks for this story, Rachel. I love hearing how people connect with songs like this.
There’s something in this track, maybe the sound more than anything, that I described as “masculine energy”, but “strong energy” is probably a better way to put it. I recognise a lot of my own experience in what you shared, that moment of being completely hooked, when a song becomes part of your life’s soundtrack.
Thanks so much for reading and for sharing your story, and welcome to the feed, Rachel. I’m really glad you’re here. Every week, I dive into the story behind a different dance track.
You're the first person other than myself who I've heard refer to "your life's soundtrack". I'm 55, and my boyfriend is 63, and we both love music. I have a rare connective tissue disorder due to my having a mutated SMAD3 gene, and a diagnosis of Loeys Dietz Syndrome Type 3. I am chronically ill, and have a plethora of serious comorbidities. Part of this is predisposition to aneurysms and dissections at even minimal dilations. I have a dilated Aortic Root Valve which has a dilation of one of three leaflets which puts me in the category of needing valve sparing heart surgery. My vascular surgeon, Dr. Joseph Bavaria, has done over 8000 surgeries and has not lost a patient. However, I am terrified of having this surgery. In the meantime, I exist with a ticking time bomb inside of me that may dissect whenever it feels like doing so. It was left up to me to schedule a date for my surgery. It sounds silly, but, I live for music, art, all the toys and other vintage stuff I have accumulated over the years. I've had a very dysfunctional life, and want to write a book, too. I do not want to die. But, I guess the choice isn't mine to make... Craig and I have so much music, we'd each need two lifetimes to listen to everything we have. I love everything from John Cale to Peter Hamill, from Syl Johnson to Billy Preston. From Secret Weapon to Sly & the Family Stone. From The Art of Noise to Ryuichi Sakamoto. From Peter Gabriel and Genesis Archive to Leslie West and Mountain. There's so much music I love, that, it feels unfair to pick favorites. I used to post 45's on Instagram until one day when they deleted years of posts from my account, and then my Facebook page, too. I have no idea why, but, I blame Meta. So, I was off of social media for a while, and only left with part of my Instagram account which I am now having trouble accessing, and I am glad to have found Substack. Thank you for your kind response, your love of music and your creativity.
This sounds incredibly hard, Rachel, and I truly hope you can get the surgery as soon as possible. I completely understand how music becomes an even more important part of your life in circumstances like these. Music has this unique ability to let us escape reality for a few moments and disappear into something beautiful, comforting and familiar.
Traditional social media can be terrible. I left the whole Meta universe during Covid because the negativity and constant noise had become overwhelming and honestly unhealthy. One of the best decisions I ever made.
Substack feels very different to me. It’s much more compartmentalised, so you can avoid most of the social media junk if you want to, and the community generally feels thoughtful and kind. I’m really glad you found your way here Rachel.
It's a great song. I don't think I'd heard it before, but I do have a later album from Williams that I stumbled on by accident and I enjoyed it.
I only know his early D Train work. Is it an album of him as a solo artist Emm or still under the D Train name?
It is under his name but with "D-Train" between his first and last name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Your_Eyes_(D_Train_album)
Oh man I loved this deep dive. I love D Train. I love the way you described it all, and the important distinction you made in the intro between songs tied to a specific memory and songs you remember being hit by but without being able to recall the specific context.
I also love how you always so carefully and masterfully navigate sensitive, sometimes even taboo or controversial topics. You have great mastery of tone, Pe. This is one of your greatest strengths (besides your vast knowledge and engaging writing style, of course).
Picture me in shock realising you could be my father 😱 You look so much younger. I'm not numerically gifted, so if you alluded to things or years which gave your age away in your earlier work, I must have missed them, or not made the connection 😂
I love discovering how our tastes are more and more aligned when it comes to certain artists or sounds, particularly, a certain type of R&B we both love. Terrific piece.
Haha… age ain’t nothing but a number, Andy! 😁 Thank you so much for your kind and generous words. They are heartwarming, because writing is a solitary enterprise, as you know, and you never quite know whether what you are aiming for truly comes across. Thanks for reading, sharing, and for your support. It genuinely means a lot. Have a great Sunday!
Even though You're The One For Me reached the Top 30 here in the UK as you mention, the Prelude 12" that really floated my boat at the time was the Kervorkian mix of Sharon Redd's Never Give You Up/ Beat The Street which itself got into the UK Top 20. My background was in rock and then new wave rather than disco, but it was records like this that opened up a world of musical possibilities. Another was You Are In My System which you also mention; I know purists would opt for the original version by The System, but if you're talking about "masculine energy" then it has to be the Robert Palmer cover version; the remix by Dominique Blanc-Francard shook me to the core!
I agree, Paul. Robert Palmer’s version of You Are in My System is the stronger one. That track will get its own episode further down the road, because it was also hugely influential and important.
I share your love for the Sharon Redd remixes as well. I first discovered that work through the Prelude Records double album Master Mixes. The remix of Never Give You Up is probably the one you mean. The production story behind that record is a fascinating one, and definitely another track worth shining a light on in the future.
Thanks for reading, Paul. Enjoy your weekend!
Aw! You make my Friday night get off to an early start. "Walk on By" was a close second hit on that first record. Saw them "open" for Chic as they were the big dogs on the block that summer.
Then Stuart Price made a meal of it with Les Rythmes Digitaslis in 2000. I still have my "All Access" laminate pass for being "The Runner" at WMC Miami and dealing with all these super star DJs at their peak of indulgence. Couldn't stop the mayhem and some got nabbed and tossed out the club. Anyway, the rest is history but keep this up Pe and the Good Times will be back.
KTU92 used it as their TV commercial theme, wherever it went, it's now buried in our DNA.
Shout out to K-Rob and Rammellzee Beat Bop! I waxed poetic at "the store" today! Remember when Hip Hop and club music were included in the same mix? Those were the salad days!
OK going to try to record a drum track on my used Roland Lit electronic kit I got for my B-day!
Haha… not done yet, Steve. When I first had the idea for this newsletter, I began with a “short” list of songs to cover, and the last count had it somewhere between 1,000 and 1,500 titles 😁 At one song a week, that should keep me busy for quite a while.
But the real pleasure of writing these stories is the interaction with you and the other readers, because everyone adds their own memories and stories. So thanks for reading and reacting, Steve. Have a good one!
I was also 18 in 1981 but for some reason I've never heard this song! Granted, I was still a year or two away from being able to hit the clubs. Perhaps it wasn't as big in the U.S. as it was in Europe. It definitely has a futuristic sound that should have made it a staple in the 1980s. I hear sounds in it that remind me of hits by The Gap Band and Shalamar from around the same time. Maybe they were influenced by it. Cool to hear though!
It was a big club record, Dan. It even hit n°1 on the Billboard Dance chart, yet somehow it never crossed over to the pop charts in either Europe or the US. Only in the UK did it break into the Top 40. What’s even more surprising is that it didn’t make a major impact on the R&B charts either.
D Train were really the first to nail this sound. Acts like Gap Band and Shalamar, among others, clearly took inspiration from them.
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts, Dan. Have a great weekend!
Thank you for another great article. Love this song. It brings tears to my eyes because it touches my soul deeply. For many, true love is very hard to get over, my friend.
That’s very true, Marta. Your reaction once again shows just how powerful music is as a repository of memories.
Thanks for reading and for sharing your thoughts. Wishing you a wonderful weekend!