Barbra Streisand - I Mean To Shine Lyrics

Nice. Sounds like SD...other than Barbs belting out the lyrics...

Has more of a sail the waterways/Dallas vibe than Cant buys a thrill ... the melody, two short guitar solos (could be Walter) and the drum, sax ending exemplify early Becker Fagan

Very reminiscent of "Sail the Waterway," the B-side of Steely Dan's first single release in the spring of 1972.

MOJO: Barbara Streisand recorded one of your songs, didn't she?

Fagen: The first song we ever had recorded [I Mean to Shine]. Not a good song, but at least she recorded it.

MOJO: What kind of royalties did you see from it?

Becker: The royalties from that song were actually signed over to our previous manager, to escape from his clutches.

MOJO: Which manager?

Becker: One of the previous managers.

MOJO: You had several?

Becker: Well, the tradition is to have a succession of previous managers. Like suitors at a gang-bang, y'know?

Sail The Waterway.

awesome piano intro, gives me chills.

FROM A LETTER POSTED BY KENNY VANCE ON Facebook 9/13/17 [Jay & The Americans], JUST AN OUTTAKE FROM IT: "We did the soundtrack for a hardly-memorable film with Richard Pryor, You’ve Got to Walk It Like You Talk It or You’ll Lose That Beat. The sound track album was released on Spark Records, with Donald singing lead on Dog Eat Dog. In 1970, I got a call from record producer Richard Perry, a friend who was making an album with Barbra Streisand; he was looking for new material. Richard placed one of their songs on the album. We met Barbra Streisand. In rehearsal, Donald played the piano and we taught her the song, I Mean to Shine. On the recording, Donald played the organ.
It was the first mainstream recording of a song written by Becker and Fagen. But this wasn’t their music. I listened to the things that they were into. But the barrier remained: theirs was a different world.
As time went by, Walter and Donald became more experienced and better prepared for the next step. They’d spent a couple of years in the studio, made countless demos, played on the road, scored a movie, written for and recorded with Barbra Streisand."

OFF KEY @LEAST 50% 0F THE TIME,HOW SHE BECAME AN ICON,I'LL NEVER NOSE.

Interesting. I definitely hear early Steely Dan in the band arrangement. Honestly, I don't think it's a particularly good Streisand vehicle. The melody is a bit R&B flavored and riffy. I can much more easily hear Donald singing it. Kind of sounds like it was an experiment for everybody, with mixed results. But I'm sure it was a great credit for Becker and Fagen at a time when they needed to build a rep.

Written by Walter Becker, half of Steely Dan who just passed away today. R.I.P. Walter, you were a musical genius.

I never heard of this song before. Not until today's obit about Walter Becker of Steely Dan. He and Donald Fagen wrote this song in their NY days.

This version apparently discards the bridge that Don and Walt originally wrote for the tune.

"I was reading an old article about Steely Dan today and it mentioned a couple of songs that a pre-fame Becker and Fagen were able to place with other artists back in the early '70's. "Giles of the River" which John Kay of Steppenwolf covered, and "I Mean to Shine" which Streisand recorded. You can hear their signature sound begin to form."
- -Clay Pigeon

You can hear them. They're grimacing through it, but they're there - SD are spinning through the motor of this piece.

This tune has their number "Dallas" written all over it..check it out, a nice little hook in the chorus, great slide guitar.

Wizard 1 ...love that very rare SD deep cut.

First heard Steely Dan's "Dallas" in Sept 1974 in the audio library at Bowling Green State U. Liked it so much I bought Poco's "Head Over Heels" album in 1975 just so I could play their gorgeous cover of "Dallas" whenever I wanted to. They were ABC/Dunhill Records labelmates at the time, and Jeff Baxter's pedal steel guitar backing was a perfect fit for Poco's Rusty Young.

Just for the record, there's an interview in Mojo where Walter Becker said, "The royalties from that song were actually signed over to our previous manager, to escape from his clutches." Donald Fagen said, "Not a good song, but at least she recorded it."

Don and Walt always tended to be their own harshest critics.

MOJO: Barbara Streisand recorded one of your songs, didn't she?

Fagen: The first song we ever had recorded [I Mean to Shine]. Not a good song, but at least she recorded it.

MOJO: What kind of royalties did you see from it?

Becker: The royalties from that song were actually signed over to our previous manager, to escape from his clutches.

MOJO: Which manager?

Becker: One of the previous managers.

MOJO: You had several?

Becker: Well, the tradition is to have a succession of previous managers. Like suitors at a gang-bang, y'know?

Jeff Truzzi ...what a great interview and a perfect Becker analogy...equating the succession of music industry manager sponges to an anonymous hook-up at an orgy...
I laughed so hard I spilled weed off my Pretzel Logic album cover...

She meant to shine, to the end of the line.

@DowntownCanon Nice call..

There are a few chord changes in this song that fairly scream early Steely Dan. You could segue as one from this tune to "Dirty Work", don't you think?

+Greg C You need to listen to SD more...then come back to this.

Today, Walter Becker died at age 67. Indeed, they wrote this very song.

I definitely hear them in this. Wish they had done a version of it.

This does sound like them, in that particular period. Of course, if I had still been only familiar with Aja and afterward, then, no, it would be light years away. I can see the connection in the chordal structure to Dirty Work. But then I never would have thought Dirty Work was them when I first heard it, if I wasn't familiar with the title from seeing it on the album in stores. But recently becoming familiar with their whole run, and now focusing on the stuff even before this, it's pretty much the same. What makes it sound so really different is the orchestration. They didn't use that at all, save for two songs later.

It actually sounds a little like Fire in the Hole from the first album

It sounds a bit like "Sail the Waterway". Becker & Fagen have called that one "stinko", so they probably feel the same about this one.

+diamonddog13 My thoughts exactly - the intro and the turn around/cadence have similar if not the same harmonies/chord changes as 'Sail the Waterway'. The vibe/mood/style of the tune is quite similar too.

Fagen has sad that the producer seriously tinkered with their original composition.

Yah I don't think they are to happy to have their name on it but that is how they are,they never seem happy with any of their old work.At least David Palmer isn't involved in this debacle-he was the only thing I dislike about early Steely Dan man he was horrible

The Streisand LP went gold (500,000 copies sold).The standard royalty rate in the early 1970's was 2 cents per song split 50/50 with the publishing company( 8 cents now) So arithmetic states that 500,000 x .02 x
.50= $5,000. Becker and Fagen received at minimum 2500 dollars each.Adjusted for inflation, today that's $13,500.
My point is that they "disowned" this version but I'm sure the money came in handy, especially since they were
making 100 a week backing up Jay & the Americans on tour.

Exactly. Bobby Womack initially hated that the Rolling Stones had the bigger hit with his song "It's All Over Now," until the royalty checks started coming in and then he said they can record my damn songs anytime they want to.

They probably made 20 bucks for this terd of a song and I would bet their version wasn't anything like this version-this song is terrible

Bet they had no problem cashing the royalty checks!

1 dislike =Which one do you think it was-Walter or Donald?

Now there's two... :D

I'd love to hear how Fagen and Becker intended to have this tune sound.

Don't know the original, but I love this version. She's like butta

@barahona44 If by strange you mean written by two musical geniuses, then I guess so.

@eldiran2 I think they just wanted the pay check.

@docweasel2006 Wow, I didn't know that at all. Now, with armed with that knowledge, I can see that. : )

A distant cousin to Brooklyn Owes the Charmer Under Me.

Becker and Fagen should have kept it for themselves...they would have done it much better than Babs.

re: @barahona44 ...I could easily see Fagan singing this on Can't Buy a Thrill. I don't think the lyrics were a re-write. If you hear the "Walk It Like You Talk It" soundtrack," the song "If It Rains" is very similar in musical/lyrical spirit to this.

May be true. But I bet if you were to compare the original to Barbra's, then I'm sure you will see why she may have wanted to make a "few" revisions. She totally believes in "beginning, middle and end". And some of the songs back in the 70's were jumbled. Barbra just wanted to make it simpler and to the point, but also tell a story in doing so. Listen to "Grandma's Hands" by Bill Withers. Then listen to Barbra's version. She slows the tempo and sings with more power. Makes you want to say AMEN!

Maybe true...but they should be so lucky to have Streisand sing their song...in whatever form...

She's a legend, for sure.

Trivia point: this was an early composition by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, who would soon after form the band "Steely Dan" and subsequently write many other, more well-known songs. According to them, this song was revised extensively by Streisand and the producer, to the point that they all but disowned it themselves.

Wonderful song from a wonderful album of Barbra's :)
As always, the impeccable Babs SHINES!!!
Love you Barbra :)

awesome, thank you so much, i love this song :)