Released 1986 Recorded 1986 Length 4:55 | Format 7", 12" Genre Soul, R&B Label Jive | |
"There'll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)" is a 1986 single by Billy Ocean. The song was written and produced by Wayne Brathwaite and Barry Eastmond; Ocean was also credited as a co-writer for the song. It appears on Ocean's 1986 album Love Zone, which was released on Jive Records. The song went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week beginning 5 July 1986, where it remained for one week, becoming the 600th song to ascend to that position. It also topped the adult contemporary and R&B charts in the United States that same summer.
Contents
Background
According to Barry Eastmond, the song was inspired by an incident involving Ocean's hit song of the previous year, "Suddenly". Eastmond told Fred Bronson in The Billboard Book of Number One Hits about a friend of his wife's who had recently broken up with a long-term boyfriend. While at a party given by her new boyfriend, the song "Suddenly," which reminded her of her previous boyfriend, was played, and she broke down in tears. Eastmond and his co-writers used this scenario as the basis for writing "There'll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)."
Music video
The music video consists of Billy Ocean performing the song live at one of his concerts in 1986. [There is a not-live-performance video in which towards the end, Billy stands seeing a woman coming towards him and as he gets ready to hug her, she just walks past him, to his devastation.]