I Will Survive
Freddie Perren (1943–2004O; Dino Ferakis (1945–)
For most of the 20thcentury, songs were written by a music specialist while working with a word specialist, for someone else to perform. After the rock ‘n roll era dawned––on many levels it never set; rock ‘n’ roll is here to stay, indeed––many performers were writing their own material, although by that time many country artists had been writing their own material for decades. But as the century rolled on, collaborations became less role-specific, with partners able to write both words and music––like Freddie Perren and Dino Ferakis, although Ferakis usually wrote lyrics. Anyway, “I Will Survive”. Whatta song. I hated it, or thought I did, when it first came out, because it was so incessant––no, please, not again! But when I was looking at songs for 1979, I thought, hmm…hey, really nice chords! And it’s cool there’s no B part. Hmm! It’s really fun to play! Hey! It’s a really good song! Lots of others thought so, too. It sold over 14 million units and was covered by over 200 others, in over 20 languages. In 2016 it was entered into the Library Of Congress, being deemed, “culturally, historically, or artistically significant”. It’s #492 on the Rolling Stone top 500. The awards and listings go on and on.
Freddie Perren came up out of Motown, he was one of the writers of the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”. Dino Ferakis was another Motown writer, that’s where they met.
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