“Fool If You Think It’s Over” is one of those great songs from the late 70’s that comes on the radio and you remember it fondly from back in the day, and then think about the group that sang it which was …., uh, no, not them, maybe it was??? And then the song is over and you’re on to something else and don’t think about it again until the song comes on once again. I’m sure there are any number of bands that COULD have sung this tune, but it was actually Chris Rea off his 1978 debut album, Whatever Happened to Benny Santini?  “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)” was written by Rea, and entered the Top 40 of the Hot 100 singles chart in Billboard magazine in July 1978, ultimately getting to #12 peak on September 16 of that year. The success of this song earned him a Grammy nomination as Best New Artist in 1979. And then that was it, at least for the US. Rea continutes to make albums and tour in UK and Europe to this day, but has never had stateside success like he did with “fool.”

While doing research on the song, I found out that it was actually inspired by Rea’s younger sister, Paula, who some years earlier been devastated at losing her first boyfriend. The lyrics end up being the advice (real or imagined) from Rea to his sister to get over this experience experience.  Interestingly, Rea once said that after writing “Fool …” that he thought it might be a song which Al Green might record. Interesting.

Of course, you can find any number of video recordings of Chris Rea lip-syncing to the original radio version of the song, but I searched and actually found a LIVE 1983 version recorded from a German TV show. Interestingly, like a lot of rock songs, Rea kinda slurs over a lot of the lyrics to fit the music in the original version (making the meaning hard to understand at times) but he actually gets most of them out in this version, bringing a slightly different vibe to it. (Along with the fact that we now know that this is advice from an older brother.)

Here’s Chris Rea, on German TV in 1983 with his one big US hit, “Fool (If You Think It’s Over)” from 1978. (Lyrics below if you want to sing along.)

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