3/17/08: Neil Sedaka: “Star Crossed Lovers” (1968)

This one is kind of thrown together. We’d written a nice entry about our favorite fictional prostitute, and then realized that might be inappropriate on what’s technically a religious holiday. We’d certainly hate to disrespect the one day of the year when we’re all drunken Catholics.

So here’s a song for those good Catholics who’ve forgotten that their faith used to be a pop-culture milestone. “Star Crossed Lovers” was the kind of single that kept Neil Sedaka off the charts for over a decade. He was insistently sentimental, and felt there was still a place for hit songs about young men troubled that they’ve fallen in love with a girl who isn’t Catholic. Our narrator even considers the whole topic to be a confession, to the extent that he’s in confession:

         Father, dear Father, I come to confession
         Hoping to find peace of mind
         Father, I’ve fallen in love with an angel
         But she's not one of our kind

“Our kind.” That sounds sweetly xenophobic. The entire song is kind of a passive-aggressive complaint, and you’ll notice that the priest doesn’t get any say in the lyrics. Instead, Neil sings about how he’s guilty of a sin, “if it’s a sin to want and need her.” If Neil was a Baptist, he’d be soulful enough to add that if loving her is wrong, he doesn’t want to be right.

But the really brave and dated thing about “Star Crossed Lovers” is that our heartbroken young man isn’t ready to throw the Eucharist out the window. His determination and love is based on his gal being a firm believer herself. That’s his big finish, so that priest better do some quick thinking:

         Father, please tell me, are we so different
         And is our love so unwise?
         We both believe there is one God in heaven,
         But we see him through different eyes

For more Catholic sentimentality, here’s the entry where we noted that there was a time when network television could expect its audience to be familiar with a surplice.

Make it your own: We really didn’t think this one out. We have “Star Crossed Lovers” on the Neil Sedaka: Anthology import, but that turns out to be way out-of-print. The song only seems to have been a hit in Australia. That’s how it got a shot at the U.S. charts in 1969. Our only other version is on a collection of early Sedaka demos called Let The Good Times In—which is a vital pop document, but you might not agree at these prices. The important thing is that somebody better jump in and reclaim “Star Crossed Lovers” before some gay act discovers the song.

And, no, we don’t want to hear any speculation about Neil’s sex life. He’s married to the lovely Leba, damnit.

And who’s that gentleman with Neil in the photo above? That’s Howard Greenfield, lyricist for “Star Crossed Lovers” and many—if not most—of Neil’s biggest hits. The two would soon address the topic of star-crossed lovers again with “Ebony Angel.” Howard doesn’t get enough credit for Neil’s hits—as addressed in this article, which includes special guest star (and good Catholic girl) Dawn Eden.

 

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