Undercover Angel (song)

Infobox Single
Name = Undercover Angel


Artist = Alan O'Day
from Album = Appetizers
B-side =
Released = 1977
Format = 45
Recorded =
Genre = Pop rock
Length = 4:10 (album version)
3:40 (single version)
Label = Warner Bros.
Writer = Alan O'Day
Producer = Steve Barri
Arranger = Michael Omartian
Certification =
Chart position = Billboard Hot 100 #1
Last single =
This single =
Next single =

"Undercover Angel" was a #1 single in the US for singer/songwriter Alan O'Day in 1977. Certified gold, it was also #4 overall for the year. [http://www.superseventies.com/1977.html]

Background

Alan O'Day, a Hollywood-native, had scored some B-movies in the 1960s, and in 1971 became a songwriter for Warner Brothers Music. He had written hit songs for other artists such as Helen Reddy, Bobby Sherman, Cher, and the Righteous Brothers. In 1977, Warner Brothers Music decided to form a special label for their composers who also performed. O'Day was the first artist signed, and the first release was "Undercover Angel."

The song, which O'Day described as a "nocturnal novelette," was released without fanfare in February 1977. But within a few months it had become #1 in the country, even without an album to support it. O'Day said about the experience, "It's wonderful when you find out what feels right, and then it also feels right to other people. That's a songwriter's dream." [http://www.superseventies.com/1977_4singles.html]

A follow-up single, "Skinny Girls", became a #1 song in Australia in 1980.

toryline

The song begins with a man commiserating his loneliness, when a woman suddenly appears in his bed, and encourages him to make love to her. The rest of the song describes his feelings about her, then he discovers she must leave him, and he is saddened. She tells him to "go find the right one, love her and then, when you look into her eyes you'll see me again."

He then explains that was his story, as apparently he has been singing this song to a woman whom he is trying to seduce, and how he wants to look in her eyes to see if she is the reincarnation of the angel he found.

References

* http://www.superseventies.com/1977_4singles.html
* http://www.alanoday.com