Kids From Fame Media: Irene Cara Fame

"Fame" written by Michael Gore and Dean Pitchford was originally released in June 1980 from the soundtrack of the movie of the same name and was performed by Irene Cara. In the U.S. the single reached number 4 on the Billboard charts in 1980. 

However the single wasn't a hit in the U.K. until 1982 where it was released in May to coincide with the U.K. premiere of the Fame TV series in June 1982. The single entered the charts on the 3rd July 1982  at number 51. The following week it shot up to number 4 on the chart and then on 17th July it reached number One, where it stayed for 3 weeks. 

In Total the song spent 16 weeks on the U.K. chart and became the 2nd biggest selling single of 1982. It is the 17th best Selling U.K. single of the 80s.

It also reached number 1 in The Netherlands & New Zealand and number 3 in Sweden.

When Interviewed Lyricist Dean Pitchford said:

"I wrote that line "I'm Gonna Live Forever". When Michael Gore played me the melody that he had come up with for the chorus. I listened down to it once, and I said, "Oh, you mean something like..." and he went back to the top and he was playing it down, and I sang, "Fame! I'm gonna live forever," and he stopped playing, and he went, "Oh my god! Write that down! I don't want to forget that!" And I said, "Oh, Michael, I don't think I could forget that one."

The rest of the song took forever to write. It was literally a month of six days, seven days a week, six hours a day of carving every one of those verses. But that line sprang out of my mouth.  The writing was excruciating, because it was very tough to navigate. You know, the idea of fame is such a pumped up, almost self-congratulatory notion, like, I'm going to be famous. It was very tricky to navigate and write something that still had energy and gosh-golly about it, without feeling too self-satisfied.

Vivian Cherry, Vicki Sue Robinson, and Luther Vandross are the background singers on "Fame," and Luther Vandross is the one who not only came up with "remember, remember, remember..." but he also stacked the voices on top of, "I'm going to learn how to fly high." He did that. He made a couple of other contributions around the edges, but the "remember" was the major one.

When I did "Fame," it never occurred to me that anybody would mishear Irene Cara sing, "People will see me and cry, Fame!", but people have misheard that as "die." And I was horrified to find that lyric sites would write out the lyric to "Fame" and state as if it were fact that I had written "people will see me and die." No. I had written "people will see me and cry, Fame!" That would be their cry." 