This is my contribution to Song Lyric Sunday for Jim Adams’s blog. This week’s prompt…Best/Better/Good/Great.
From her 1984 album, Private Dancer. The song reached #16 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart on November 2, 1984.
From Songfacts.
This song was written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman. In our interview with Holly Knight, she told the story: “I was seeing a guy at the time who kind of had this adorable little crush on me, this German guy. He came to my house and left me some flowers and a note, and it said something like, ‘If you’re good to me.’ And I’m thinking, you know, if I can twist that around I can make it into a song.”
Chapman and Knight wrote this for Knight’s band Spider, who released the original version in 1981. Chapman and Knight wrote several hits together, including “Love Is A Battlefield” and “The Best, but this was the first song they ever wrote together. Chapman was an established songwriter, but this was new to Knight, who quickly learned she had a talent for composing songs. Says Knight: “I didn’t know I was a songwriter ’til Mike Chapman told me I was. I was playing keyboard since I was 4, but I only wrote because everybody else in my band Spider was doing it, and they kind of sucked.”
Rupert Hine produced this track and played all the instruments except guitar. He was working with the Fixx at the time recording their Phantoms album, and agreed to take a week off to work on Tina Turner’s Private Dancer, where he produced “Better Be Good To Me” and “I Might Have Been Queen,” which he also wrote. According to Hine, Turner’s manager Roger Davies sorted through hundreds of songs searching for the right ones to get her comeback rolling. The only song that was written specifically for Turner was Hine’s “I Might Have Been Queen.”
Since their producer was taking some time off to work on the Tina Turner album, the Fixx guitarist Jamie West-Oram got in on the action and played on this track. Fixx lead singer Cy Curnin added backing vocals along with Rupert Hine, who played the rest of the instruments. The male backing vocals were unusual and gave the song an edgier sound that helped set it apart from similar productions.
This won for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female at the 1985 Grammy Awards. Turner also won that year in the category of Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female for “What’s Love Got To Do With It.” >>
In the book Classic Albums, Turner said: “This song was very me. I could just see myself performing it. It was just right – the words and the delivery, the performance of it – and what I liked about what Rupert Hine did with it is his style of keyboard. It just blared through, and wherever you heard it, the first thing you got was that bass line that he added. That was what made that song a hit. It was my vocal and Rupert Hine’s keyboard. He’s got something, and it works.”
Better Be Good To Me
A prisoner of your love
Entangled in your web
Hot whispers in the night
I’m captured by your spell
Oh yes I’m touched by this show of emotion
Should I be fractured by your lack of devotion
Should I, should I?
You better be good to me
That’s how it’s gotta be now
‘Cause I don’t have no use
For what you loosely call the truth
And you better be good to me
C’mon c’mon be good to me
I think it’s all so right
That we don’t need to fight
We stand face to face
And you present your case
Yes I know you keep telling me that you love me
And I really do want to believe
But did you think I’d just accept you in blind faith
Oh sure babe, anything to please you
But you better be good to me
That’s how it’s gotta be now
‘Cause I don’t have the time
For your over loaded lines
And you better be good to me
Be good to me
And I really don’t see why it’s so hard to be good to me
And you know, I don’t understand what’s your plan, that you can’t be good to me
Why can’t you be, good to me
Be good, be good to me
‘Cause I don’t have no use
For what you loosely call the truth
And I don’t have the time
For your over loaded lines
But you better be good to me
Be good to me, be good
Be good to me
‘Cause I don’t have no use
For what you loosely call the truth
And I don’t have the time
For your over loaded lines
You better be good to me
Good to me, better be, good to me
Be good, be good to me, good to me
Why can’t you be good to me
Why can’t you be good to me
C’mon c’mon c’mon
Writer/s: HOLLY KNIGHT, MICHAEL DONALD CHAPMAN, NICHOLAS BARRY CHINN
Free Fallin' 
Good song Ricky…its been a while since I heard it.
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Excellent choice! This entire album was FIRE! 🙂
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Those leather pants really work for Tina. This is a great song for her and you did a terrific job in your write up Ricky.
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Thanks, but I had a lot of help from songfacts.
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Awesome pick for today. Thanks for sharing.
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I’ve not heard this one before – it’s good! I love to watch her perform. 🙂
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Hey, a twofer! You have “better” and “good” in the title!
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Yeah, This song popped into my mind after doing a little searching. The search was over when I remembered it.
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New one on me. Tina was looking great, as always. Love that hair!
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That’s really strange I thought it was played everywhere. Oh, well you’ve heard it now.
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