“Still Losing You”
Ronnie Milsap
Written by Mike Reid
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
August 18, 1984
Even a misguided crossover album earns Ronnie Milsap a No. 1 country hit.
All of the label’s energy seemed to go into the pop single from this album. “She Loves My Car” featured a video that is even more ridiculously eighties than the album cover, looking like it was shot on the set of Cloris Leachman-era Facts of Life. Milsap himself has a blink-and-you-miss-it cameo in the clip, singing through the titular car’s side mirror. Future Emmy Award-winning television star Mariska Hargitay plays the woman in the video.
The pop single bombed, but everything about it is so much more interesting than “Still Losing You,” which tries too hard for a “serious” pop production, complete with an overly long synthesizer introduction to establish the mood.
It’s a solid Mike Reid composition that doesn’t need any of those bells and whistles, and you can hear a typical Ronnie Milsap record embedded within the track. I bet this sounded great live back in the day with Milsap’s piano unadorned by the studio tricks of the time.
Reid also penned the second country single from the album, “Prisoner of the Highway,” which went top ten.
Milsap will return to an earlier style with his next No. 1 single, featured on his second greatest hits collection. We’ll get to that one in 1985.
“Still Losing You” gets a B.
Every No. 1 Single of the Eighties
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@KJC:
I think they were aiming in the introduction something akin to the elongated intro to Neil Diamond’s 1980-81 pop hit “Hello Again”…or at least that;s how I hear it. The coincidence is probably unintentional, however.
As for the song itself–well, I must say it’s kind of hard for me not to get a touch choked-up when I have heard it. It does show Ronnie’s R&B/pop influences quite well (IMHO).
When Milsap gets taken to task for representing the worst of ’80s country, his amazing vocal skills always get lost amidst “the studio tricks of the time.”
Just listen to him sing.
The man is a special vocalist. He isn’t limited to one style or sound. He is a great interpreter.
I didn’t know Milsap recorded so many Mike Reid compositions, or just how many other Mike Reid-penned songs other country artists recorded in the ’80s.
“Still Losing You’ still feels familiar these many years later though by no means a favourite Milsap single of mine.