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Solitaire (Laura Branigan song)

"Solitaire"
Laura Branigan - Solitaire.png
Single by Laura Branigan
from the album Branigan 2
Released March 23, 1983
Format
Genre Pop rock
Length 4:06
Label Atlantic
Writer(s)
Producer(s)
Laura Branigan singles chronology
"Gloria"
(1982)
"Solitaire"
(1983)
"How Am I Supposed to Live Without You"
(1983)

"Solitaire" is a song by American singer Laura Branigan. Written by Martine Clémenceau and Diane Warren, produced by Jack White and Robbie Buchanan, it was released in March 1983 as the lead single from Branigan's second studio album, Branigan 2 (1983).

The song originated as a 1981 recording in French by Martine Clémenceau for whom "Solitaire" was a modest hit with a French chart peak of #50 on the French pop charts where it remained for 22 weeks. Written by Clémenceau herself, the French version of "Solitaire" concerned a recluse who shuts himself away from a world moving toward nuclear war. The English lyrics of "Solitaire" reinvent the song's narrative, with the playing of the card game solitaire employed as a metaphor for the singer enduring the neglect of her lover. "Solitaire" would launch the hitmaking career of Diane Warren who had recently been employed as a staff writer by Branigan's producer Jack White; Warren gave White the completed lyrics for "Solitaire" the day after he asked her to give the song an English rendering.

The lead single from the Branigan 2 album, "Solitaire" debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 the week Branigan's breakthrough hit "Gloria" fell off the chart; with a #7 peak "Solitaire" became Branigan's second consecutive Top Ten hit. A chart item on Billboard's Adult Contemporary and Dance charts at respectively #16 and #28, "Solitaire" was an international success with hit status in several territories where "Gloria" had been a success - see chart below - a significant exception being the UK.

The verses begin low and restrained, with the melody's theme repeated in ever-higher variations throughout the pre-chorus and chorus, climaxing in three high, sustained belts of "Solitaire". The song's rangy melody and dramatic refrain appealed to Branigan and producers Jack White and Robbie Buchanan, who extended the original arrangement to revolve back to one last refrain, giving Branigan a triumphant, sustained final note in keeping with the new lyrics by Warren, which have Branigan turning the tables on a neglectful lover and getting on with a life she had put on hold for him. The note is a mere two seconds shy of the world record for longest note held by a female singer in a hit Pop song, which is held by Donna Summer in "Dim All the Lights" (which was covered by Branigan in 1995).


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