21 December 1985
One of the great redundant questions of our time is “How will I know if he really loves me?” as asked by 1980s Whitney Houston. Well, because you’re 1980s Whitney Houston! Pretty much a pinnacle of human perfectibility! Not having such vocabulary at the time, since I was only a child, I probably just blushed and thought she was lovely.
That sort of relatable feeling—hers, not mine—was sorely lacking from Whitney Houston’s 1990s canon, which is less a songbook than an effects bank of how gale-force winds would sound through different types of metal piping. ’90s Whitney would have obliterated ‘Saving All My Love For You’. Fortunately, ’80s Whitney was still reading well-crafted soulful ballads like this with the requisite nuance and emotion, conveying hints of vulnerability and confusion (the latter especially at the bizarre concept of 1980s Whitney Houston being last on anyone’s list) while stepping it up for the dramatic bits when required, and only when required. The little raspy growl in her voice on the final “tonight is the night”, for instance, is a great embodiment of the resolve called for by the storyline.
This was Houston’s first single on our side of the Atlantic, and as an introduction it was highly impressive; ‘classy’ is the mot juste for Whitney’s performance here. That said, I prefer her poppier ’80s hits, where she could still let rip but as a means of conveying the giddy R ‘n’ B-fuelled thrill of wanting to dance with somebody or how would she know if he really loved her. Swoon.
