Cole was exposed to the greats of jazz, soul and blues at an early age and began performing at the age of 11. Her debut album in 1975, Inseparable, won her immediate praise, with the smash single This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) (#1 R&B, #6 Pop) winning her a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female, a category that had been monopolized by Aretha Franklin, since its inception in 1967. She also was named the Grammys' Best New Artist of 1975. She attended the Northfield Mount Hermon School in Northfield, MA.
More hits followed through 1980, including her biggest Pop hit, 1977's I've Got Love On My Mind, as well as Sophisticated Lady (She's A Different Lady) (1976), Our Love (1978), and Someone That I Used To Love (1980). "I've Got Love On My Mind" and "Our Love" both earned certifications as Gold singles. But then her career hit a snag in the early 1980s due to a severe drug problem. By 1985, Natalie was clean, sober, and in fine voice, and ready to begin her comeback in earnest with the album Dangerous, released on the Modern label.
In 1987, she released Everlasting (on EMI Manhattan) which sold over 2 million copies in the U.S., and won Cole a Soul Train Award for Female Single of the Year for the #1 R&B ballad I Live for Your Love. This album was the one that put Natalie Cole firmly back in the spotlight, yielding three major hit singles: Jump Start, "I Live For Your Love" (#2 AC and #13 Pop as well as #1 R&B), and a successful remake of Bruce Springsteen's Pink Cadillac (#5 Pop, #16 AC, and #1 Dance). The album also included a taste of things to come in her career with a remake of one of her father's signature hits, "When I Fall In Love," which did moderately well on the AC chart. In 1989, the aptly-titled Good To Be Back gave her another across-the-board smash with "Miss You Like Crazy" (#1 both R&B and AC, and #7 Pop).
However, it was her 1991 album, Unforgettable... with Love, featuring her own arrangements of her father's greatest hits, that gave her the most success. Ironically, when Natalie began her career, she was determined not to capitalize on her father's name and wanted to forge her own identity by going after the soul market in earnest. For many years, she also found the prospect of recording her late father's songs too painful on a personal level. But Unforgettable... With Love certainly paid off. The set sold over 5 million copies in the United States alone, and won Cole several Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance. The album featured a duet, the title track, with her father, created by splicing a recording of his vocals into the track. As a single, it reached #14 on Billboard Magazine's Hot 100 chart, and went gold. The one sour spot in the album's success was that it strained Natalie's already-tumultuous relationship with her mother, Maria, who said in interviews at the time that she couldn't listen to the album or attend any of her daughter's concerts because she felt that the music really belonged to her late husband.
Natalie has released several more albums of pop standards in the years since; as a result of appealing to the "adult standards" audience, she has made only occasional forays onto the pop singles charts in that time (for example, "A Smile Like Yours," #8 AC and #84 Pop in 1997), although her albums still sell well. Her 1999 album Snowfall On The Sahara marked a return to the easy adult-contemporary soul that categorized her late-1980s hits, but for 2002's critically-praised Ask A Woman Who Knows, she turned more to the jazz side of the spectrum, covering songs made famous by Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, and Sarah Vaughan.
Battle With Drugs
In 2000, Cole released an autobiography, Angel on my Shoulder, which described her battle with drugs during much of her life. In the book, Cole admitted to using LSD, heroin and crack cocaine. Cole said she began experimenting with drugs while attending the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and was arrested in Toronto, Canada for possession of heroin in 1975. Cole continued to spiral out of control - including an incident in which her young son Robert nearly drowned in the family swimming pool while she and her first husband, the late Reverend Marvin Yancy were on a drug binge - until she entered rehab in 1983.
In concert with the release of the book, her autobiography was turned into a made-for-TV movie, The Natalie Cole Story, which aired December 10, 2000 on NBC.
Natalie has been married three times and has a son Robert Yancy (by Marvin Yancy), born in 1977. She later married former Rufus drummer Andre Fischer, who co-produced the Grammy Award-winning Unforgettable... With Love, Natalie's love offering featuring songs made famous by her father, including a faux-duet between her and her father.
The marriage to Fischer ended in divorce a few years later, amidst rumors of domestic verbal and physical abuse.
It has also been reported that Natalie has recovered from a life-threatening hepatitis illness (most likely the cause of her years of drug abuse) by having a liver transplant.
Miss Cole went on to release more albums after Unforgettable...With Love, with most of them featuring jazz-oriented standard songs or pop-song remakes. None of the albums were nearly as successful as Unforgettable...With Love.
As of 2013, Natalie Cole spent most of her professional time covering the concert circuit entertaining audiences around the world with her hits.
On December 31, 2015, Natalie Cole died from congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She was aged 65.
Cry Me A River
Natalie Cole Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
You cried the long night through
Well, you can cry me a river, cry me a river
I've cried a river over you
Now you say you're sorry
For being so untrue
Well, you can cry me a river, cry me a river
You drove me, nearly drove me out of my head
While you never shed a tear
Remember, I remember all that you said
Told me love was to plebeian
Told me you were through with me
And now you say you love me
Well, just to prove you do
Come on and cry me a river, cry me a river
I've cried a river over you
Well, you told me love was to plebeian
Told me you were through with me
And now you say you love me
Well, just to prove that you do
Come on and cry me a river, I wanna see a river
'Cause I've cried a river over you
I've cried a river over you, I've cried a river over you
I've cried a river over you, I've cried a river over you
I've cried a river over you, I've cried a river over you
In Natalie Cole's "Cry Me A River," the singer addresses an ex-lover who has come back into her life after leaving her alone and heartbroken. The lyrics reflect the bitterness and pain that the singer has experienced due to the lover's mistreatment of her. One of the key themes of the song is that the singer is now in control of the situation, and has the power to make her lover suffer just as she has suffered. The repeated refrain, "cry me a river," is a powerful assertion of this power dynamic, and is an effective way to communicate her feelings.
The song begins with the ex-lover claiming to be lonely and crying, but the singer's response is not one of sympathy - instead, she tells the ex-lover to cry her a river, because she has already cried her own river over the ex-lover. The lyrics also reference the ex-lover's previous comments about love, in which they dismissed the singer's feelings as "plebeian." The singer uses this to her advantage, daring the ex-lover to prove their love by crying her a river.
As the song progresses, the singer's power continues to grow. She reminds the ex-lover of all the pain they caused her, and how they never took responsibility for it. Now, the ex-lover has to answer to the singer, who is no longer willing to be the victim. The final lines, "I've cried a river over you," are a powerful summation of the singer's emotions and experiences, as well as a warning to the ex-lover not to make the same mistakes again.
Line by Line Meaning
Now you say you're lonely
You claim to feel lonely at this point in time.
You cried the long night through
You wept incessantly throughout the entire night.
Well, you can cry me a river, cry me a river
If you are looking for someone to cry for you, then you can cry for me instead.
I've cried a river over you
I have also shed countless tears over you.
Now you say you're sorry
Currently, you express regret for your past actions.
For being so untrue
You admit to not being truthful in the past.
You drove me, nearly drove me out of my head
Your past behavior caused me a great deal of mental anguish.
While you never shed a tear
Despite this, you never showed any signs of remorse or sadness.
Remember, I remember all that you said
I have not forgotten anything that you have previously said or done.
Told me love was to plebeian
You once told me that love was beneath you or common.
Told me you were through with me
You also mentioned that our relationship was over or finished.
And now you say you love me
However, you are now claiming to be in love with me.
Well, just to prove you do
In order to verify your claim of loving me,
Come on and cry me a river, cry me a river
I want you to demonstrate your love for me by shedding an immense amount of tears.
I've cried a river over you
As aforementioned, I have cried a lot over you as well.
Well, you told me love was to plebeian
You mentioned once before that love is common or vulgar.
Told me you were through with me
You also conveyed to me that our relationship had ended.
And now you say you love me
But now you are saying that you have feelings of love for me.
Well, just to prove that you do
So, in order to validate your love,
Come on and cry me a river, I wanna see a river
I want you to cry excessively and show me how much you truly care.
'Cause I've cried a river over you
Again, I have cried a lot over you.
I've cried a river over you, I've cried a river over you
Once more, I have cried immense amounts of tears because of you.
I've cried a river over you, I've cried a river over you
Yes, you guessed it, I have cried so much over you that it feels like an endless river of tears.
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Written by: Arthur Hamilton
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@rosespeakstruthlikeitis155
Isn't she Awesome 👍💐💐💐💐🤗
@Maggie12496
Natalie är bäst!
@newnanbro1
Dare I say that this entire lp gets more plays from than the sales juggernaut; Unforgettable: With Love ? 😮💞
@benjaminbon7621
🙏 Merci Natalie , pour ce partage en France 🇨🇵 ; Vous êtes une grande artiste ! 🌟 Et votre voix est un véritable don de Dieu !✨
Pour moi , le plus important est - votre partage du coeur ♥️ par votre art - c'est plus important que des vues sur Youtube ; car vous faites plaisir aux gens , qui vous écoutent et qui vous découvrent ! Vous êtes comme ma sœur Nathalie : " Vous êtes un cadeau de Dieu sur terre ! " 🎁✨🙏 merci 😘♥️