Tom Kelly and Bill Steinberg knew how to write decent pop songs. Much of what they recorded as I-Ten on 1983’s Taking a Cold Look, their one and only album, was later covered to great success by other bands and musicians.
Kelly and Steinberg scored a hit with Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” back in 1984, and they also wrote Heart’s 1987 smash “Alone.” (By the way, “Like a Virgin” was produced by Patrick Leonard, who went on to work with Peter Cetera on 1988’s One More Story, but I digress.) So, it’s no surprise that “Alone” producer Ron Nevison returned to the well for 1991’s Twenty 1, hoping to get another crack at that level of success with Chicago. Kelly and Steinberg were definitely bonafide songwriters.
So, what happened with Chicago’s “You Come to My Senses”? Well, for one, Humberto Gatica. Warner Bros. / Reprise was unhappy about Ron Nevison’s original mix, so they brought in Gatica to update the album behind Nevison’s back. Nevison’s version had an altogether more organic feel: It breathes, and the horns are much more prominent – not buried as they were on the Gatica mix. Even though it felt more organic within the context of the rest of Twenty 1, however, the exec said it still didn’t feel “right.”
While “You Come to My Senses” isn’t a bad song, it is a bad Chicago song. This might have been a good fit for other singers or bands, but sounds distinctly out of place in the context of the rest of Chicago’s catalog.
Tom Kelly and Bill Steinberg wrote a lot of solid songs, and I’d argue that they probably did have at least one song out there that would have been a good fit for Chicago’s Twenty 1. Unfortunately, “You Come to My Senses” just wasn’t that song.
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