Did Captain & Tennille Re-Record Their Entire First Album in Spanish?
Here is the latest in a series of examinations into urban legends about music and whether they are true or false. Click here to view an archive of the movie urban legends featured so far.
MUSIC URBAN LEGEND: Captain & Tennille re-recorded their entire first album in Spanish.
While it might be a bit curious to hear, it has been somewhat common over the years for English-speaking singers to re-record their hit songs for release in other countries.
Connie Francis was particularly known for doing this, like this German recording of her hit song, “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool.”
But other artists did it, as well, from Johnny Cash to the Beatles. However, in the case of Captain and Tennille’s 1975 debut album, Love Will Keep Us Together…
which included the smash hit by the same name, they took it one step further…
Again, as noted, they had a hit song with the title track to the album, “Love Will Keep Us Together”….
They then did a Spanish version of the song, “Por Amor Viviremos”….
However, this song was a surprising hit within the United States, hitting #49 on the Billboard Charts, giving them TWO versions of the same song in the Billboard Top 100 (the original version spent four weeks at #1 – do note that Captain and Tennille’s version is a cover of a Neal Sedaka song from 1973).
So they decided to then re-record the ENTIRE album in Spanish!
Por Amor Viviremos was released in May 1976…
They even re-named Captain “Capitan” and included an Y!
Pretty awesome, right?
The legend is…
STATUS: True
Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future urban legends columns! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com
Not only was “Love Will Keep Us Together” written by Neil Sedaka, but if you listen carefully to the fade out on the Captain and Tennille’s version of the song, you can hear a shout to him as Toni Tennille sings, “Sedaka is back.” (Sedaka had, if memory serves, recently had a hit of his own, a duet with Elton John, “Bad Blood”.)
Thanks for mentioning that, Benn. I actually originally intended to make mention of that, but obviously I forgot. 🙂
When you say “re-record the entire album” I assume you mean “re-recorded the vocals” not “re-recorded everything from scratch”.
Yep!
You’re welcome, Brian. I remember when I first that little easter egg was in the song, I went back and listened closely for it.
Also, Big Sugar had a limited release where they recorded in french all the song they were going to release as singles. In the province of Québec it was included as an extra disc in a paper sleeve wrapped on top of the normal english release.