From '' Emma ''
Label: EMI -- 1A 006 1192257
Format: Vinyl, 7\", Single
Country: Netherlands
Released: 1986
Tracklist
A Emma
B La-Vi-Va
Written-By -- Cathérine Vanhoucke, Jean-Pierre Goudesone
Engineer -- Paul Delnoy, Peter Bulkens
Producer, Mixed By -- Flesh & Fell, Frankie Lievaart
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Emma, also known as Emma, Emmaline or Emmeline, is a song by Errol Brown and Tony Wilson released as a single by Hot Chocolate in 1974.
It reached No.3 in the UK charts and No.8 in the US charts.
Brown explained to The Mail on Sunday in 2009: \"The story is tied to the death of my mother, aged 38.
It was almost not released, as Mickie (Most, producer) thought it too slow and morbid.
The girls in his offices at RAK Records changed his mind.\"
Plot
The song details the love of the (nameless) singer and a girl called Emmaline from the age of five, through a wedding at 17 until her suicide at an unspecified later date.
Emma it seems wanted to be a \"movie queen\" but could never find the breaks and eventually kills herself because \"I just can't keep on living on dreams no more.\"
Cover versions
The Sisters of Mercy started performing the song live in 1985.
The studio version was released on the b-side of the 12\" version of their 1988 single, \"Dominion\" and on the 2006 re-release of the album Floodland.
Flesh & Fell also released a version of 'Emma' in 1986.
Đorđe Marjanović released a cover of the song in Yugoslavian titled 'Ema, Emili / Emma' in 1974 in his 7'' vinyl 'A Život Teče Dalje / Ema, Emili'.
A few months later it was included in his 'A Život Teče Dalje ... ' album.
Urge Overkill recorded a version for 1990 Touch and Go Records release \"Supersonic Storybook\".
The Arts and Sciences included the song as a bonus track on their 2004 album Hopeful Monsters.
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Lyrics
We were together since we were five
She was so pretty
Emma was a star in everyone's eyes
And when she said she'd be a movie queen
Nobody laughed
A face like an angel
She could be anything.
Emmaline
Emma, Emmaline
I'm gonna write your name high on that silver screen.
Emmaline
Emma, Emmaline
I'm gonna make you the biggest star this world has ever seen.
At seventeen she was wed
And worked day and night
To earn her daily bread.
And every day Emma would go out
Searching for that play
That never, ever came her way.
You know sometimes she'd come home
So depressed
I could hear her crying in the back room
Feel so distressed.
And I'd remember back when she was five
To the words that used to make
Emmaline come alive.
It was :
\"Emmaline,
Emma, Emmaline,
I'm gonna write your name high on that silver screen.
Emmaline,
Emma, Emmaline
I'm gonna make you the biggest star this world has ever seen.\"
It was a cold and dark December night
When I opened up the bedroom door
To find her lying still and cold
Upon the bed
A love letter lying on the bedroom floor
It read :
\"Darling I love you,
But I just can't keep on living on dreams no more.
I tried so very hard not to leave you alone.
But I just can't keep on trying no more.\"
