1979 · Behind the Songs
Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins write the year’s most decorated song about self-deception.
By 1979 the Doobie Brothers had become Michael McDonald’s band in all but name, and “What a Fool Believes” was the proof — a song he wrote with Kenny Loggins that turned self-deception into the smoothest hit of the year. From Minute by Minute, it reached number one and then swept the 1980 Grammys, winning both Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
The lyric is a small masterpiece of psychology: a man who keeps misreading a past romance, recasting a polite goodbye as a promise. McDonald’s keyboard riff circles like a thought that won’t let go, and his vocal — half confessional, half lullaby — makes the delusion sound almost reasonable.
It’s the defining record of the McDonald era — and of yacht rock itself: polished, melancholy, and wise about the stories people tell themselves to get through the night.