Smokey Robinson Wrote This Big 1981 Hit for a Female Artist Instead

In 1981, Smokey Robinson released “Being With You”, a song that remains one of the biggest hits of his career. Written by Robinson, “Being With You” is the title track of a record that also came out in 1981. The fact that the song became such a success for Robinson is surprising, since he had no idea he was going to release it himself. Instead, Robinson thought “Being With You” was going to be recorded by Kim Carnes.

In 1980, Carnes had a Top 10 hit with “More Love”. The song is a cover of a 1967 song Robinson released under Smokey Robinson & The Miracles. George Tobin produced Carnes’ cover of “More Love”, which prompted Robinson to send him “Being With You” as well. Robinson didn’t know that Tobin was no longer working with Carnes. Instead, Tobin encouraged Robinson to record “Being With You” himself.

“Being With You” is an imploring song about not wanting a relationship to end. It begins with. “I don’t care what they think about me and / I don’t care what they say / I don’t care what they think, if you’re leaving / I’m gonna beg you to stay / I don’t care if they start to avoid me / I don’t care what they do / I don’t care about anything else / But being with you, being with you.“

How Smokey Robinson Ended Up Recording “Being With You”

One of the engineers in the studio, H. Lee Wolen, later recounts how “Being With You” became a Robinson hit instead of one for Carnes.

“I was in the studio with George, and in walks Smokey Robinson,” Wolen tells Mix Online. “Smokey had a song he’d just written, and he wanted to play it for George as a possible follow-up to ‘More Love.’ He played the song for George, and George said, ‘Forget about Kim Carnes. I want to record you singing it!’ Right there and then, he talked Smokey into doing the song. George saw an opportunity he couldn’t pass up, and he just went for it. He was very good at that.”

Perhaps surprisingly, although it was written for Carnes, it didn’t take long for Robinson to warm up to the idea of making “Being With You” a song for him instead.

“It was probably around 4:00 in the afternoon on a Friday when George talked Smokey into recording the song,” Wolen remembers. “Instantly, George is on the phone, calling up the rhythm section, and four hours later, we were in the studio recording ‘Being With You’ with Smokey Robinson singing it.”

Photo by Gary Gershoff/Getty Images

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