All because of "All Because of You."

OK.

We did it.

It took three weeks and was utterly excruciating, but we did it.

We listened to every track off All Because of You. To be truthful, it was slow going and rough. Really rough. But now, so you don't have to experience what we experienced, here's a brief description of every song on Lisa Whelchel's 1984 opus, All Because of You.



1. Love Believer
The music here is basically just a synth-pop variation on Elton John's "Saturday Night's Alright (for Fighting)." The words are about, go figure, god wanting you to be a love believer and a love receiver. We don't know about the love believer part, but 8th Avenue between 14th and 23rd Streets here in NYC has the love receiver part pretty well taken care of. Hi-oh!

2. Just Obey
Dare we say this song is a mixture of Joe Jackson's "Steppin' Out" and Flashdance? The music is a mere foundation for Lisa to yell at you to OBEY (much like another Whelchclamation, "Shackles!")! She doesn't seem to understand that the best way to get someone to do something is to ask nicely. Though we now understand much more clearly why Donut Cauble pees in the kitchen.

3. How High, How Deep, How Wide
Unfortunately it's a ballad and sounds nothing like the classic, "River Deep, Mountain High." And unfortunately the lyrics are not finessed enough to make you think of anything but Lisa wanting to have sex with god. Sorry.

4. Real Possibility
Wow. This one's a blatant "What a Fool Believes" ripoff by way of Xanadu-era ELO. Meaning, we love it! Well, not love it. Like it better than the others thus far. Until, of course, Lisa begins to sing. Well, not sing. Squawk. Anyway, it's a real possibility that if you are listening along with us, this is the point where you seriously begin to consider suicide.

5. Good Girl
We're assuming this was the record's homicide bomb of a single, if, indeed, a single was thrust upon the unprepared world. It doesn't directly mention god or Jesus (at least not as far as we can tell which is about *this* far), but it does address why being a spoiled brat is unholy. Or something like that. We kind of tune out of any song that has "She is a game of Chutes and Ladders" as a lyric. However, there is a killer guitar solo in the middle. And, by "killer," we mean...never mind.

6. Shelter
Oh, come AWN. You can slow this shit down as much as you want, Lisa, but, to paraphrase old Gertie Stein, Shannon's "Let the Music Play" is Shannon's "Let the Music Play" is Shannon's "Let the Music Play." In this case, however, let the music stop.

OK, we're now gonna impose a trick we learned from commenting on the Coffee Talk entries: we're gonna skip to the end. Don't worry—we listened to all the tracks on this opus. We'd never lie to you. But there's a moment when, like every interview with Eva Longoria, it all begins to sound like a dull drone. For us that happened at track 2. We stuck it out through track 6 all because of you! And now we're jumping ahead to track 9, as if tracks 7 and 8 never happened. Which, basically, they didn't.

9. All Because of You
Alas, the title track! This ditty sounds like Spyro Gyra beat Carole Bayer Sager up and blamed Dionne Warwick. And we're the ones with the bruises. And do we really need to explain what the lyrics mean? Good, 'cause we really didn't listen to them. All apologies, sweet, sweet flute.

10. He Sings Me to Sleep
And it's over! How apt that Lisa ends her exercise in sleep induction with a lullaby. Well, it looks like a lullaby. And it sounds like a lullaby. That is, until the synth bursts in like our cousin Jeanette at a buffet. And then we're knee-deep in one last bombastic and creepy Lisa-wanting-to-sleep-with-god number. Can someone be sued for deity abuse?

Well, praise Jesus, we made it to the end, and we're still alive! Now excuse us as we go drink us to sanity.

Lulla-bye!