"The Next Time I Fall" is a song written by
Bobby Caldwell
Robert Hunter Caldwell (August 15, 1951 – March 14, 2023) was an American singer and songwriter. He released several albums spanning R&B, soul, jazz, and adult contemporary. He is known for his soulful and versatile vocals. Caldwell release ...
and
Paul Gordon and recorded by a duet of
Peter Cetera and
Amy Grant
Amy Lee Grant (born November 25, 1960) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She began her music career in contemporary Christian music (CCM) before crossing over to pop music in the mid-1980s. Grant has been referred to as "Honorific ...
for Cetera's 1986 album ''
Solitude/Solitaire''. It reached number one on ''
Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...
'' magazine's
Hot 100
The ''Billboard'' Hot 100, also known as simply the Hot 100, is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), o ...
[.] and
Adult Contemporary
Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...
chart
[.] and was nominated for a
. In February 2020, it was listed on a ''Billboard''
pop music
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.S. Frith, W. Straw, and J. Street, eds, ''iarchive:cambridgecompani00frit, The Cambridge Companion to Pop ...
list of top 25 love song duets.
Upon its release as a single,
''Cash Box'' said the Cetera/Grant team achieved "...sparkling results. Grant’s harmonies perfectly compliment Cetera’s trademark ballad stylings in this strong duet."
Background
Songwriter Paul Gordon recalled working on the project with Bobby Caldwell. "Bobby had just moved into a new apartment, and all he had was a drum machine and a chair. We spent a couple of inspired days knocking out that song. It was a lot of fun working with Bobby."
[.] The feeling was mutual for Caldwell: "Yes, writing with Paul was a great experience. Sometimes these collaborations click and sometimes not, but this was a smooth and painless venture."
[
Gordon explained that Caldwell did the vocals on the demo and that they wrote the song for Cetera to sing.][ "And even when he was no longer in ]Chicago
Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
we decided to stick with him."[ Caldwell confirmed, "We did indeed write the song for Chicago and their lead vocalist Peter Cetera. We had his voice in mind, but Paul and I were unaware that he was leaving Chicago at that time, and when we heard the news our hopes were dashed. However, a short time later, I got a call at home from Cetera himself who stumbled upon our demo cassette tape of the song in producer/arranger ]David Foster
David Walter Foster (born November 1, 1949) is a Canadian record producer, composer, arranger, and musician. He has won 16 Grammy Awards from 47 nominations. His career began as a keyboardist for the pop group Skylark in the early 1970s befor ...
's office. He loved the tune and wanted to record it as a duet. It was simply meant to be—the song landed with the singer we wanted."[.] Gordon also felt the project had a happy ending.
"It was an accidental duet, meaning it was never intended to be a duet—but the producers found ways to make it a duet, which ended up working out pretty well."[
Now, it was a matter of Cetera deciding who would be his singing partner. "'I was looking for somebody who wasn't that logical a choice,' he explained. 'Actually, I was going to use an "unknown" singer until someone at my record company suggested Amy Grant,'"] who had thus far only been known for Contemporary Christian music
Contemporary Christian music (CCM), also known as Christian pop, and occasionally inspirational music, is a genre of modern popular music, and an aspect of Christian media, which is lyrically focused on matters related to the Christianity, Chri ...
. "I thought she was a great choice because she was looking to make a pop crossover, and I like what she stands for. She was real excited about the idea, too."[ However, Grant still had reservations. Caldwell noted, "Cetera really wanted her to record the duet with him, but she was so devoutly religious that she wanted to vet the songwriters before she would commit to recording the song. I had to go to ]A&M Records
A&M Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group and functions as a branch of Interscope Geffen A&M Records, Interscope-Geffen-A&M. Established in 1962 by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, the label initially operated independent ...
to meet with her. Obviously, I was on my very best behavior that day e laughs I'm sure Paul had to go through the same process."[.]
Music video
After the song was recorded, a music video was filmed at the Park Plaza Hotel in downtown Los Angeles, California, under the direction of Dominic Sena
Dominic Sena (born April 26, 1949) is an American film director and music video director. As a film director, he is best known for directing the films ''Kalifornia'' (1993), ''Gone in 60 Seconds (2000 film), Gone in 60 Seconds'' (2000), and ''S ...
. The clip consists of shots of Cetera and Grant's lip-syncing that are interwoven with footage of the movements of a large group of dancers. The video made it up to at least No. 7 on the ''Cash Box'' list of top 40 music videos.
Personnel
* Peter Cetera – vocals
* Amy Grant
Amy Lee Grant (born November 25, 1960) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She began her music career in contemporary Christian music (CCM) before crossing over to pop music in the mid-1980s. Grant has been referred to as "Honorific ...
– vocals
* Michael Omartian
Michael S. Omartian (born November 26, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter, arranger, keyboardist, and music producer. He produced number-one records in three consecutive decades. He has earned 11 Grammy Awards nominations and won three. H ...
– keyboards
* Willie Alexander – Fairlight CMI
The Fairlight CMI (short for Computer Musical Instrument) is a digital synthesizer, music sampler, and digital audio workstation introduced in 1979 by Fairlight.
— with links to some Fairlight history and photos
It was based on a commerc ...
* Steve Azbill – PPG Waveterm programming
* Erich Bulling – synthesizers, drum programming
* Dann Huff – guitars
* Chester Thompson
Chester Thompson (born December 11, 1948) is an American drummer best known for his tenures with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, Weather Report, Santana (band), Santana, Genesis (band), Genesis and Phil Collins. Thompson has performed ...
– drums
* Jeff Porcaro
Jeffrey Thomas Porcaro (April 1, 1954 – August 5, 1992) was an American drummer. He is best known for being the co-founder and drummer of the rock band Toto, but is also one of the most recorded session musicians in history, working on hundr ...
– percussion
* Kenny Cetera – additional percussion
Chart success
"The Next Time I Fall" debuted on the Hot 100
The ''Billboard'' Hot 100, also known as simply the Hot 100, is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for songs, published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales (physical and digital), o ...
in the issue of ''Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...
'' dated September 20, 1986, and remained on the chart for 21 weeks, one of which was spent at number one.[ Its first appearance on the magazine's ]Adult Contemporary
Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul ...
chart followed in the September 27 issue and resulted in two weeks in the top spot during a run that lasted 22 weeks.[
]
Charts
Cover versions
Caldwell recorded the song for his 1988 album ''Heart of Mine''.
References
Bibliography
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External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Next Time I Fall, The
1986 songs
1986 singles
Peter Cetera songs
Amy Grant songs
Bobby Caldwell songs
Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles
RPM Top Singles number-one singles
Male–female vocal duets
Songs written by Bobby Caldwell
Song recordings produced by Michael Omartian
Music videos directed by Dominic Sena
Pop ballads
1980s ballads
Warner Records singles
Songs written by Paul Gordon (composer)