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I've Never Been To Me

"I've Never Been to Me"
I've Never Been to Me.jpg
Single by Charlene
from the album
Songs of Love
and Charlene (1977)
I've Never Been to Me
(1982)
B-side "It's Really Nice to Be in Love Again" (1977)
"Somewhere in My Life" (1982)
Released 28 July 1977, February 1982
Format 7"
Recorded 1976
Genre Pop
Length 3:49 (1977)
3:47 (1982)
Label Prodigal (1977)
Motown (1982)
Writer(s) Ron Miller, Kenneth Hirsch
Producer(s) Ron Miller, Don Costa,
Berry Gordy
Charlene singles chronology
"Freddie"
(1977)
"I've Never Been to Me"
(1977)
"Are You Free"
(1978)

"Hungry"
(1980)

"I've Never Been to Me"
(1982)

"Used to Be" (with Stevie Wonder)
(1982)

"I've Never Been to Me" is the title of a ballad, written and composed by Ron Miller and Kenneth Hirsch, which is best known via a recording by American pop singer Charlene. Its original release in 1977 barely registered on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States, but its re-release in 1982 hit #3 and earned her a Gold certification in Australia. In addition, the song topped the charts in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom and Ireland.

The song is best known as lyrically formatted for a female vocalist and as such is addressed to a desperate wife and mother who would like to trade her prosaic existence for the jet setting lifestyle the song's narrator has led. The narrator alludes to various hedonistic episodes in her life, concluding that while she's "been to paradise," she's ultimately failed to find self-fulfillment expressing this with the line, "I've never been to me." There is also an alternative set of lyrics for the song formatted for a male singer, in which the narrator is an elderly man, destined to die the very next day, begging for a dime for a cup of coffee, addressing a younger man who is "raising hell" the way the old man used to do.

Charlene had recorded "I've Never Been to Me" in 1976 for her 1977 debut album Songs of Love which was essentially reissued the same year under the title Charlene; the reissue had a slightly different track listing but retained "I've Never Been to Me". Upon its September 1977 single release, "I've Never Been to Me" became Charlene's third consecutive single to stall in the lowest part of the Hot 100 in Billboard following "It Ain't Easy Coming Down" - also from the Charlene album - and "Freddie" whose respective Hot 100 peaks had been #97 and #96: the Hot 100 peak of "I've Never Been to Me" in its original release was #97 and while Charlene's precedent two singles had both reached Billboard's Easy Listening chart - "It Ain't Easy Coming Down" at #23, "Freddie" at #40 - "I've Never Been to Me" failed to appear on that chart.


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Wikipedia

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