Song of the Day 8/25: Santana feat. Michelle Branch, “The Game Of Love”

You can better understand the sentiment behind the line “hope I die before I get old” when you see what reactionaries some of rock’s elder statesmen have become. Eric Clapton and Van Morrison revealed themselves – well, re-revealed themselves – as selfish twits during the Covid crisis. Now Carlos Santana has come out, mid-concert, as anti-trans.

I’ll leave it to the psychoanalysts to explain why people who aren’t trans themselves have such strong opinions about the condition, but there sure are a lot of them. The article at the link notes that Dee Snider of Twisted Sister and Paul Stanley of Kiss – guys whose stage personae involved long hair and lots of makeup – as well as Vince Furnier – who performed as Alice Cooper – have recently made their less-than-accepting opinions known. You might even call it a fad.

Santana is the rare frontman who doesn’t sing, and he writes little of his own material. Since his 1999 comeback with his chart-topping “Supernatural” album, he has usually collaborated with younger singers. “Smooth,” his signature song to all but his oldest fans, featured Matchbox 20’s Rob Thomas, but producer Clive Davis wanted a female singer for this tune for his followup LP, “Shaman.” He settled on Michelle Branch, a young singer who was riding a hot streak when this was released in 2002.

Branch recorded her vocal while still in her teens, and she wasn’t the No. 1 choice for the job. Tina Turner took first crack at it, and Carlos, at least, preferred her version. “Queens come and go,” he said, but “there’s only one Tina Turner. I love Michelle, and she did a great interpretation of it. It’s just that with all honor and respect to Michelle, there’s the girl and there’s the woman, and Michelle is unfolding into a woman. But it takes time to go from a girl to a woman.” Some sources indicate that Davis rejected Turner’s vocal only because she declined to appear in the video.

The tune was written by Gregg Alexander, who had the New Radicals hit “You Get What You Give” before turning to writing and production, and Rick Nowels, a longtime songwriter and producer who lately has worked with Dua Lipa and Lana Del Rey. This is a gussied-up version of Alexander’s original demo.