Eric Carmen - All By Myself (1975)

"All by Myself" is a power ballad written and performed by Eric Carmen in 1975.

The verse borrows heavily from the second movement (Adagio Sostenuto) of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto in C Minor or, Opus 18, which Carmen believed was in the public domain. Having found it was not only after the record had been issued, Carmen had to come to an agreement with the Rachmaninoff estate. Early versions, therefore, only give writing credit to Carmen while later versions also credit Rachmaninoff. The chorus borrows from a song "Let's Pretend" that Carmen had written for the Raspberries in 1973.

The song was the first release from Carmen's first solo LP after leaving the power pop group the Raspberries and was originally recorded by the author and released in December 1975 to great success. It reached number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 1 on Cash Box Top 100 Singles and number 12 in the UK. The single sold more than one million copies in the United States and was certified gold by the RIAA in April 1976. In a 2006 poll for UK's Five programme Britain's Favourite Break-up Songs Eric Carmen's version of this song was voted seventeenth.

Carmen's original version has spawned numerous cover versions by such artists as Celine Dion, Frank Sinatra, and Igudesman & Joo. It should not be confused with the jazz standard of the same name, written by Irving Berlin and performed by Ella Fitzgerald and others.

On his second solo LP, Boats Against the Current, Carmen had a subsequent Top 40 hit entitled "She Did It" which was the antithesis of "All by Myself." It is a happy answer to the loneliness and lovelessness described in this song and its equally melancholy follow-up "Never Gonna Fall in Love Again."

The Carmen version is used in the video introduction for Conan O'brien's "Legally prohibited from being funny on Tv tour", when an obese and bearded version of the talk show host struggles to cope with losing his job as host of Tonight Show.

"All by Myself"
Single by Eric Carmen
from the album Eric Carmen
Released	Early December 1975
Format	Single
Genre	Pop Rock
Length	4:54
Label	Arista
Writer(s)	Eric Carmen, Sergei Rachmaninoff
Certification	Gold (U.S.)