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"I Can't Make You Love Me" recorded for the new album "Free", in one take.

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SamHarrisCOM
August 28, 2008

Download song now at ► http://SamTunes.NET (Click "watch in high quality" link under video) Sam Harris, in the recording studio, working on one of the tracks for his new album entitled "Free". ...

Download song now at ► http://SamTunes.NET

(Click "watch in high quality" link under video)

Sam Harris, in the recording studio, working on one of the tracks for his new album entitled "Free".

This song is especially emotional to Sam, and hard for him to get through, so he insisted that what you hear (and see) is what you get the first time around. Therefore, what you are hearing here is the actual recording you will hear from the album. Does not get anymore raw than this!

► MORE: http://samharris.com/free

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I Can't Make You Love Me
Written by Michael Barry Reid, James Allen Shamblin II
Almo Music Corp, Rondor Music International, Inc. (ASCAP)
Arrangement - Steve Marzulo/Todd Schroeder
Piano -- Todd Schroeder
Cello -- Mai Bloomfield
Produced by Sam Harris

http://tinyurl.com/loveme

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Lyrics:

I CAN'T MAKE YOU LOVE ME

Turn down the lights, turn down the bed
turn down these voices inside my head.
Lay down with me, tell me no lies.
Just hold me close, don't patronize
-- don't patronize me.

I can't make you love me, if you don't.
You can't make your heart feel something it won't.
Here in the dark, in these lonely hours,
I will lay down my heart and I'll feel the power.
But you won't, no you won't,
cause I can't make you love me, if you don't.

I'll close my eyes, then I won't see
the love you dont feel when youre holding me.
Morning will come, and I'll do what's right.
Just give me till then to give up this fight,
and I will give up this fight.

I can't make you love me, if you don't.
You can't make your heart feel something it won't.
Here in the dark, in these lonely hours,
I will lay down my heart and I'll feel the power.
But you won't, no you won't,
cause I can't make you love me, if you don't.

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"I Can't Make You Love Me" is a 1991 popular song, written by Mike Reid and Allen Shamblin and recorded by Bonnie Raitt on her Luck of the Draw album from that year. In August 2000, Mojo magazine voted "I Can't Make You Love Me" #8 on its The 100 Greatest Songs Of All Time list.

The idea for the song came to Reid while reading an article about a man arrested for getting drunk and shooting at his girlfriend's car. The judge asked him if he had learned anything, to which he replied, "I learned, Your Honor, that you can't make a woman love you if she don't." Reid and Shamblin were both country music songwriters, who according to some accounts originally wrote the song as a fast, bluegrass number. Upon slowing down the tempo considerably, they realized the song gained considerable power. It then made its way to Raitt.

A pensive ballad, "I Can't Make You Love Me" was recorded against a quiet electric piano-based arrangement, with prominent piano fills and interpolations supplied by Bruce Hornsby. The singer depicts a now one-sided romantic relationship about to end in soft but brutally honest terms.

Raitt recorded the vocal in just one take in the studio, later saying that it was so sad a song that she couldn't recapture the emotion: "We'd try to do it again and I just said, 'You know, this ain't going to happen.'"

The song was a big hit for Raitt, reaching #18 on the U.S. pop singles chart and #6 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and helped solidify her remarkable late-in-career commercial success that had begun two years before. In the time since, "I Can't Make You Love Me" has gone on to become a pop standard and a mainstay of adult contemporary radio formats.

While Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me" was not a big success in the United Kingdom, as part of George Michael's 1997 double a-side single "Older / I Can't Make You Love Me", it reached the Top 3 of the UK Singles Chart. It has also been recorded by a number of other artists, including Prince, Bonnie Tyler, Kenny Rogers, Kimberley Locke and Gina G to name a few. Saxophonist Candy Dulfer has also recorded an instrumental version. A version by the band Venice was featured over the end credits of the controversial film Boxing Helena.

It has become a popular selection for contestants in televised singing competitions such as American Idol, Nashville Star, and Rock Star: INXS.

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Category: Music

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bonnie raitt can't make you love me george michael divorce breakup sad song ballad blues pop sam harris singer unbelievable new cd over the rainbow star search grand champion winner american idol Allison Iraheta songwriter top lover songs bonie rait raite philosophy mai bloomfield piano cello acoustic unplugged oh my god behind music scenes video mtv vh1 cover concert album free adam lambert

"I Can't Make You Love Me" recorded for the new album "Free", in one take.

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