Cover Me: I Forgot to Be Your Lover

I’ll admit my bias.

William Bell is one of my favorite unsung artists. Along with “Private Number” (which I dearly hope is among the forty other songs Bruce Springsteen recorded but rejected for his latest album), Bell’s deeply soulful “I Forgot to Be Your Lover” sits atop my all-time favorite Stax singles list.

When I noticed its inclusion on Only the Strong Survive, I was both delighted and trepidatious. When it comes to covering other artists, Bruce consistently delivers. Every tune he touches benefits from either an inventive new arrangement or a delivery powerful enough to make you forget the original.

In this case, though, the original is unforgettable.

“I Forgot to Be Your Lover” gave Bell his first Top Ten R&B hit in 1968, seven years into his recording career. It would be even longer before he had another, although his 1969 non-charting “Born Under a Bad Sign” (co-written with fellow Stax legend Booker T. Jones) would go on to become a blues classic.

Bell and Booker T. were the songwriting team behind “I Forgot To Be Your Lover,” too. Its doleful backing track (featuring an uncredited Jones on electric guitar) pairs perfectly with Bell’s rueful vocals. It’s his finest performance on record, in my opinion, and if you listen closely you can hear the seeds of “Back in Your Arms” in both content and delivery.

And therein lies the rub: some songs are so definitive that it’s almost impossible to make them your own–at least not without taking them in a very different direction. That’s exactly what Lee “Scratch” Perry did when he covered “I Forgot to Be Your Lover” in a reggae arrangement in 1971…

…or The Mad Lads in their 1973 arrangement that… well, it defies description.

The most commercially successful version of “I Forgot to Be Your Lover” is also the most artistically daring: Billy Idol’s 1986 rockabilly-dance version (with a truncated “To Be a Lover” title) that peaked at #6 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Which direction did Bruce take Bell’s song? As it turns out, no direction at all. Bruce’s version on Only the Strong Survive hews very closely to the original, matching it in length, style and delivery from its note-for-note recreation of the introduction.

Bruce’s version of “I Forgot to Be Your Lover” is so close to Bell’s original that I can only assume he welcomes if not downright invites comparison.

So how does Bruce’s cover compare to the original? Pretty well, actually.

Musically, it falls a bit short, losing some of the loneliness of the original backing track due to some questionable orchestration decisions. (Ron Aniello’s glockenspiel is particularly misplaced, brightening a song that has no business being brightened.)

Vocally, though, Springsteen easily matches Bell’s impassioned delivery, producing some of the album’s most thrilling moments (0:56, for example). It certainly doesn’t hurt that he’s supported by Stax royalty Sam Moore’s backing vocals.

If anything, Bruce goes a bit too far on the passion front. Bell’s original is warm, soothing, even seductive–as if he’s proving to his off-screen love interest that he may have forgotten to be her lover, but he didn’t forget how to be one. Bruce’s version, by contrast, is pure anguish verging on self-flagellation. That’s not a criticism, but it makes the song land very differently on the listener’s ears.

One can easily imagine Bruce tackling “I Forgot to Be Your Lover” in full soul shout mode in concert complete with mid-song patter. In fact, I’m surprised he didn’t go there on the album. At only two-and-a-half minutes, Bruce certainly had room to let the song breathe without breaking the arrangement, like Melissa Etheridge did so adeptly in her 2016 cover.

Still, these are quibbles that only surface during comparisons. Taken at its own merits, Bruce’s version of “I Forgot to Be Your Lover” qualifies as one of his best vocal performances and a fine homage to a Stax classic.

I Forgot to Be Your Lover
Recorded: 2021
Released: Only the Strong Survive (2022)
Never performed

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