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.
Teach Me Tonight
Natalie Cole Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Studied, graduated and qualified to show me what it's all about?
Honey, talk is cheap, you gonna have to convince me
Did you say, I've got a lot to learn?
Well, don't think I'm trying not to learn
Right here is the perfect spot to learn
Teach me tonight
Starting with the A, B, C of it
Right down to the X, Y, Z of it
Teach me the whole mystery of it
Teach me tonight
The sky's a blackboard high above us
And if a shooting star should fly by
I'll take that star and write, I love you, I love you
A thousand times across the sky
One thing isn't very clear, my love
Should the teachers stand so near, my love?
Graduation's almost here, my love
Come on and teach me tonight
The sky's a blackboard high above you
And if a shooting star should fly by
I'll take that star and write, I love you
A thousand times across the sky
One thing, one thing isn't very clear
Should no teachers stand so near
Graduation's almost here, my love
Come on and teach me tonight
Graduation's almost here, my love
Teach me, teach me tonight
The song "Teach Me Tonight" by Natalie Cole is a plea for a lover to teach her how to love. The singer is hesitant to believe that her partner is a love expert, and she challenges him to convince her otherwise. She acknowledges that there is a lot she has to learn about love, and requests that he teach her right there and then. The lyrics "starting with the A, B, C of it, right down to the X, Y, Z of it" emphasize her eagerness to learn the entire mystery behind love. The sky serves as a metaphor for her blank slate, with the potential for her love to fill it up just like a blackboard. Even if a shooting star were to pass by, the singer would rather use it as an opportunity to write her love for her partner across the sky a thousand times.
Despite her enthusiasm to learn, the singer is hesitant about the idea of other people teaching them how to love. The lyrics "one thing isn't very clear, my love, should the teachers stand so near?" question whether their friends or family should be involved in their relationship, potentially complicating things. As the end of the school year approaches, the singer sees that their time together is limited and urges her lover to teach her before it's too late.
Line by Line Meaning
Excuse me did you call yourself a love expert
Did you just claim to be an expert of love?
Studied, graduated and qualified to show me what it's all about?
Have you completed your degree in love or something else? Will you show me what love really means?
Honey, talk is cheap, you gonna have to convince me
Words alone do not suffice in proving your expertise in love; you have to prove it to me.
Did you say, I've got a lot to learn?
Is it true that I have a lot to learn about love?
Well, don't think I'm trying not to learn
Don't think for a moment that I am not willing to learn.
Right here is the perfect spot to learn
This place is ideal for me to learn something about love from you.
Teach me tonight
Please impart your knowledge of love to me this very night.
Starting with the A, B, C of it
Begin by explaining the basic fundamentals of love.
Right down to the X, Y, Z of it
Continue teaching me about love in detail, leaving nothing out.
The whole mystery of it
Please make me understand the whole mystery behind love.
The sky's a blackboard high above us
The sky serves as a blank canvas that can be used to express love.
And if a shooting star should fly by
If we are lucky enough to see a shooting star, then that would be perfect for what I have in mind.
I'll take that star and write, I love you, I love you
I will use that shooting star to write a message of love across the sky.
A thousand times across the sky
The message of love will be written multiple times.
One thing isn't very clear, my love
One thing I am unsure about, my love.
Should the teachers stand so near, my love?
Should the instructors be standing so close to us?
Graduation's almost here, my love
Graduation is approaching, my love.
Come on and teach me tonight
Please teach me about love tonight.
Graduation's almost here, my love
Graduation is rapidly approaching, my love.
Teach me, teach me tonight
Please teach me everything there is to know about love this very night.
Lyrics © CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.
Written by: Sammy Cahn, Gene De Paul
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind