Alicia Keys’ “Girl on Fire” Also a “Lonely Girl” from 1970

11/25/12 1:35pm Roger Friedman 14

Alicia Keys’ new hit “Girl on Fire” is catchy, catchy, catchy. But like a lot of Keys’s songs, it comes with ingredients from past hits. The credits do include a nod to “The Big Beat” by Billy Squiers, upon which the whole drumline is apparently based. There’s another sample that doesn’t seem to be credited anywhere unless I’ve totally missed it. In the middle of the song, Alicia sings a couplet or so from Eddie Holman’s 1970 classic “Hey There Lonely Girl.” The song was written by Leon Carr and Earl Shuman, who are both gone to rock and rock and roll heaven.

“Hey There” was first recorded by Ruby and the Romantics in 1963. But it was Holman’s wonderful recording that became a once in a lifetime hit. Keys only uses two seconds of the original, but it helps make her record. It’s not the same as when she remade The Main Ingredient’s “Let Me Prove My Love to You” into “You Don’t Know My Name,” but it’s still prominent for anyone who grew up during the classic era of R&B.

Do they teach this sampling stuff at Juilliard?

Hey There Lonely Girl:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3lscp1GCjUQ#!

Girl on Fire (“Hey There” at 2:26)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J91ti_MpdHA

A list of some of Alicia Keys’s samples: http://www.whosampled.com/artist/Alicia%20Keys/

Roger Friedman

Roger Friedman began his Showbiz411 column in April 2009 after 10 years with Fox News. Friedman previously wrote the Intelligencer column at New York Magazine, He writes for Parade magazine and has written for Details, Vogue, the New York Times, Post, and Daily News and many other publications. He is the writer and co-producer of a film about R&B Music called “Only the Strong Survive,” which was released by Miramax in 2003 and was a selection of the Cannes, Sundance, and Telluride Film festivals.