“Only One You”
T.G. Sheppard
Written by Michael Garvin and Bucky Jones
Radio & Records
#1 (2 weeks)
February 5 – February 12, 1982
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
February 20, 1982
We’ve made it more than halfway through T.G. Sheppard’s string of eight consecutive No. 1 hits.
I’m still waiting for a truly great record, but at least we haven’t had a truly loathsome entry in a while. There are more of them coming, but not today.
“Only One You” is a game attempt at sincerity, with only a passing reference to his younger lothario days. He’s going for the heart here:
There’s only one Eiffel TowerOne finest hourOne New York townOne 5th Avenue
There’s only one Mona LisaOne Leaning Tower of PisaOne Paris and there’s only one you
There is nothing particularly original or compelling here. Just a generic Urban Cowboy production and a vocal that isn’t as loyal to one key as the lyric is to one woman.
But you won’t need to wash your ears with bleach after listening to it. So there’s that.
“Only One You” gets a C.
Every No. 1 Single of the Eighties
Previous: Juice Newton, “The Sweetest Thing (I’ve Ever Known)” |
Curse you, T.G. Sheppard! Despite having consciously completely forgotten about this song, my seemingly limitless song-bank of lame lyrics quickly loosened my tongue and had me singing along.
As kid, I felt sophisticated dropping all the cultural references in the fairly unsophisticated rhyme scheme at play here; the song felt exotic and mature. The jittery production does nothing to protect Sheppard’s limitations as a vocalist.
I wonder if we will ever recapture, or even understand, the zeitgeist of Sheppard’s popularity.