1979 · Behind the Songs
A love too big to happen twice — and a career back from the edge.
By 1979 Dionne Warwick needed a hit the way a plant needs water: the Bacharach-David years were a decade behind her, and the charts had moved on. Barry Manilow, then at his commercial peak, produced her album Dionne, and Richard Kerr and Will Jennings supplied this sweeping ballad about a love too big to happen twice. Warwick sang it with total commitment, her voice soaring over the key change like she had been waiting years for the material.
It reached No. 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance — the comeback was official. The record works because Warwick never begs; she declares, and the dignity in her delivery makes the heartbreak hit harder. It announced the second act of one of pop’s great careers.