Released 1976 Genre Soft rock Label Columbia | A-side "Lido Shuffle" Length 4:12 Writer(s) Boz Scaggs | |
"We're All Alone" is a song written by Boz Scaggs, who introduced it on his 1976 album Silk Degrees. It was included as the B-side of two of the four single releases from that LP, including "Lido Shuffle." "We're All Alone" was a 1977 top-ten hit for Rita Coolidge in the US and the UK.
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Early versions
A heartfelt ballad which closed Silk Degrees, "We're All Alone" garnered attention soon after the album's March 1976 release. Frankie Valli had a single version which reached #78 U.S. in August 1976 (#74 Cash Box; #73 Canada), and in the spring of 1977 a version by Bruce Murray was an airplay item in Canada.
The Walker Brothers - one of Scaggs' formative influences - cut "We're All Alone" for their Lines album; the track had an October 1976 single release in the UK where the Frankie Valli version had a single release that July; the Walker Brothers' version did reach #22 in the Netherlands in August 1977 a month before the Rita Coolidge version reached the Dutch charts.
In March 1977 the version by the Three Degrees - recorded for the album Standing Up For Love - was a UK single release meaning that the Rita Coolidge version of "We're All Alone" which reached UK #7 that summer was the fourth UK single release to feature the song as an A-side.
Scaggs' own version of "We're All Alone" was the standard B-side of his international single release "Lido Shuffle" including its release in the US and UK where "Lido Shuffle" respectively charted at #11 and #13. However, in Australia Scaggs' "We're All Alone" was issued with "Lowdown" as the flip to become a double A-side chart entry reaching #54 in the autumn of 1977, the only evident instance of the Scaggs original charting.
In March 1977 C&W singer LaCosta had a single release of "We're All Alone" in both the US - where it charted at #75 C&W - and also the UK where the track was the B-side of a remake of "I Second That Emotion".
In a 1976 interview with Creem magazine, Scaggs stated that Michael Jackson had cut versions of "We're All Alone" and "What Can I Say" — both from Silk Degrees — but if so, these tracks have never been released.
Rita Coolidge version
The Rita Coolidge version of "We're All Alone" was featured on the album Anytime...Anywhere released in March 1977.
Coolidge would recall: "When I was with A&M Records, it was like a family. I would visit Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, and it was a very open, communicative group of people. One day I was in Jerry Moss' office and he said that the Boz Scaggs album Silk Degrees was in a million homes and there was a song on it that was perfect for a woman to sing. He said, 'It's called "We're All Alone" and as he's not doing it as a single, I think you ought to record it.'"
The original lyrics of "We're All Alone" include lines "Close your eyes ami" and "Throw it to the wind my love". Coolidge sings these lines as "Close your eyes and dream" and "Owe it to the wind my love".
Although the first single off the US release of Anytime...Anywhere was "(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher", "We're All Alone" was the first single taken off the album in the UK where it reached #6 in August 1977 when "(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher" was moving up the US Top 10; that same month "We're All Alone" reached #6 in Ireland. In September Coolidge's version of "We're All Alone" entered the Dutch charts where it would peak at #15 (in August the Walker Brothers' version had reached #22 on the Dutch charts).
The second single from Anytime...Anywhere in the US, "We're All Alone" there ascended to #7 that September: the track also received enough airplay in the C&W market to reach #68 on the C&W chart.
"We're All Alone" was the first of Coolidge's two Adult Contemporary #1 hits - the second would be "All Time High" - and after "(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher" was her second single to be certified gold for US sales of 1,000,000.
In December 1977, "We're All Alone" entered the charts in Australia to remain for 16 weeks with a #32 peak - the original Boz Scaggs version had been a minor Australian hit in the autumn of 1977 reaching #54 in a tandem charting with its flip "Lowdown".
In New Zealand, Coolidge's "We're All Alone" charted with a #34 peak in February 1978.
Reportedly the concurrent availability of both the Boz Scaggs original and the Coolidge version of "We're All Alone" at radio stations moved some disc jockeys to splice together the two tracks into one unofficial duet - perhaps the earliest instance of that phenomenon.
Coolidge remade "We're All Alone" for her 2005 jazz release And So Is Love: Elysa Gardner of USA Today opined that Coolidge "brings a new wistfulness and knowing to her own hit of yore...proving that good interpretive singers, like fine wine, improve with age."
Other versions
Other versions of "We're All Alone" have been recorded by Bob James - an instrumental jazz version on 1977 album Heads, Beat Crusaders, Maj Britt ("Alene Her"), Cecilio & Kapono, Petula Clark ("On est tout seul"), Anne Cochran, Ben Cramer ("Gelukkig Zijn"), Linda Eder, René Froger, Monica Forsberg, René Froger, Salena Jones, Kiri Te Kanawa, Engelbert Humperdinck, Arja Koriseva ("Me Kaksi Vain"), Kisu ("Niin yksin oon"), Liesbeth List ("Vertrouwd Gevoel"), Johnny Mathis, Reba McEntire with Jose e Durval ("Solo yo, sola tu"), Natalia, Newton, Mary O'Hara, Natalia Oreiro and also Manolo Otero ("Estamos Todos Solos"), Päivi ("Kun Luonain Oot"), Zsa Zsa Padilla, Pieces of a Dream, Rico J. Puno, Patty Pravo ("Da Soli Noi"), Kurt Ravn, Collin Raye, Gilberto Santa Rosa ("Impaciencia"), Doreen Shaffer, Stutz Bear Cats, Susan Wong, and Yulia.
The 1997 release California Dreamin', a project comprising a cappella versions of soft rock classics credited to the West Coast All Stars, featured "We're All Alone" with a lead vocal by Bill Champlin: the other members of the West Coast All Stars were Jason Scheff, Bobby Kimball and Joseph Williams.
In 2005 bilingual singer Angela Aki of Japanese and Italian-American descent released a version of "We're All Alone" with her own Japanese lyrics retaining one verse in the original English.
Japanese rock band Beat Crusaders did a cover of this song.
The song is most popular in the Philippines..