Ab major · Camelot 4B · 128 BPM
Say You, Say Me
by Lionel Richie
- 128
- BPM
- Ab major
- Key
- 4B
- Camelot
- 64
- Danceability
- 37
- Acousticness
In 1985, Lionel Richie was coming off the enormous success of his 1983 album Can't Slow Down, which had sold more than 20 million copies worldwide and produced the number one singles "All Night Long (All Night)" and "Hello". That year he also co-wrote the charity single "We Are the World". When director Taylor Hackford approached him to write a title theme for the ballet drama White Nights, starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Gregory Hines, Richie found himself unable to compose a song with "White Nights" in the title. Instead, he submitted a demo of a ballad called "Say You, Say Me", which Hackford approved and included in the film.
Produced by Richie and James Anthony Carmichael, the song was primarily recorded in Richie's living room. Motown declined to place it on the film's soundtrack album, unwilling to let Richie's first single after Can't Slow Down appear on another label, and instead included it on his 1986 release Dancing on the Ceiling. In the movie, the track played over the closing credits.
Released as a single, "Say You, Say Me" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks and topped the Hot Black Singles chart in December 1985, giving Richie his ninth number one on the Adult Contemporary chart. It sold a million copies in the United States. In South Africa it proved even bigger, spending a total of 30 weeks at number one and finishing as the top single of 1986 on the year-end Springbok chart.
Say You, Say Me runs at 128 BPM, the tempo of house, disco and most club dance music. In classical terms it sits in allegro territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.88 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 469 ms. It is in Ab major, Camelot 4B, which shares its notes with F minor and mixes cleanly with Db major and Eb major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.