‘Band of Gold’

Freda Payne blows the roof off in a song that offers hidden backstory galore

Originally, I planned to title this series Song of the Day. When I realized how overwhelming that would be, I switched to Song of the Week. Had I kept that approach, we would have landed at Songs Twice A Week, which would have been charmingly clumsy.

Then, thanks in large part to Freda Payne, I stumbled onto Slayed by Voices. Because that’s really what this is — an expression of gratitude for all the different times the power of singers and songwriters have brought me to my knees.

More often than not, it’s the words that take me down, but sometimes, more than anything, it’s the pure power of a voice shattering the darkness.

Song: “Band of Gold”

Artist: Freda Payne

Year: 1970

Album: Band of Gold

Songwriters: “Edythe Wayne,” Ron Dunbar

Producers: Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier

Freda Payne has one of those voices. And this song, “Band of Gold,” is pure fireworks.

It’s a sad story, bluntly told — a young woman who has barely known love is abandoned on her wedding night. She is left only with a ring, and the devastating contradiction of “the memories of what love could be.”

It will turn out that there is more to the story. But Payne, whose last name would seem to be a literary invention designed specifically for this roaring lament, makes the simplicity of the lyrics searing.

The song opens with drums, bass, an electric sitar (very cool) and then a lead guitar riff by none other than future Ghostbusters themester Ray Parker Jr. And then, backed by singers that include future Tony Orlando and Dawn members Joyce Vincent Wilson and Telma Hopkins (later of Bosom Buddies and more), Payne enters at full throttle.

Now that you're gone
All that's left is a band of gold
All that's left of the dreams I hold
Is a band of gold
And the memories
Of what love could be
If you were
Still here with me

Just a passing note that the beginning of the song is the end of the story, and then we go back and learn how it happened.

You took me
From the shelter of my mother
I had never known
Or loved any other
We kissed after taking vows
But that night
On our honeymoon
We stayed
In separate rooms

Oof. And … why?

I wait
In the darkness of my lonely room
Filled with sadness
Filled with gloom
Hoping soon
That you'll walk
Back through that door
And love me
Like you tried before

I’m interrupting here only to make the observation about that tinge of hope, not only in the words but also in Payne’s voice. Even as she speaks out in despair against her newly betrothed’s abandoment, her sensitive approach to the song offers the incredible layer that she can’t quite believe what has happened — nor that it isn’t a mistake.

Since you've been gone
All that's left is a band of gold
All that's left of the dreams I hold
Is a band of gold
And the dream of
What love could be
If you were
Still here with me

Echoing that point, a subtle shift in the chorus here: from “the memory of what love could be” of to “the dream of what love could be,” underscoring how here, we’re still in the middle of the story looking forward, as opposed to the end of the story looking back.

The higher octave reach on “here with me” is pure raw emotional pleading. It’s followed by an instrumental interlude in which the musicians are on fire, before Payne re-enters.

Ohhhhhh ….

(I added the letter h six times, but really it should be more like 20. Trying that again.)

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh …

Don't you know that I wait
In the darkness of my lonely room
Filled with sadness
Filled with gloom
Hoping soon
That you'll walk
Back through that door
And love me
Like you tried before

Still hoping, but time’s getting short.

How about that last line? It reveals that even the love that led them to the altar was an effort for her partner. That’s … never a good sign.

Since you've been gone
All that's left is a band of gold
All that's left of the dreams I hold
Is a band of gold
And the dream of
What love could be
If you were
Still here with me

Since you've been gone
All that's left is a band of gold
(Fade out)

OK, now for the more to the story.

I never gave much thought to why the groom abandons his bride the night of the wedding, beyond thinking he was some kind of cad. Neither did Payne, who nearing the age of 30 reportedly believed she was too old to sing in the character of such a young lover.

But co-songwriter (this is a story in itself) Lamont Dozier¹ offered an explanation to Carl Wiser at Songfacts that is an “Oh, of course” moment.

Songfacts: In the song "Band Of Gold," what is going on lyrically?

Dozier: The story was, the girl found out this guy was not all there. He had his own feelings about giving his all. He wanted to love this girl, he married the girl, but he couldn't perform on his wedding night because he had other issues about his sexuality. I'll put it that way.

It was about this guy that was basically gay, and he couldn't perform. He loved her, but he couldn't do what he was supposed to do as a groom, as her new husband. I know it sounds simple but that's where the idea came from.

Songfacts: Did you guys flesh out that story before condensing it into the lyric?

Dozier: Exactly. We'd talk about a lot of music. What's happening here? What are these chords saying? Either we would do it that way or we would say, "What is this title about? What's the story going to be in 'Band Of Gold?' She's married, she's got the ring, but what's happening in the story now to make it interesting?"

That's how that came about. We said, "Let's make the guy gay and he can't perform. He loves her but he has these other issues." That's how we developed it.

Speaking from ignorance, I’d think this would be one of the first pop songs ever to confront this kind of issue, even between the lines.

But in another twist, this might not have been the original intent of the song at all, and that Payne’s nascent beliefs about the song were valid — this was a woman who was too young and inexperienced to be emotionally prepared for her wedding night. An earlier version of the song, which I only learned about while writing this through an interview with co-songwriter Ron Dunbar, included the lines “the night I turned you away” and “the vows we made gave you the right, to have a love each night.” Near the end, Payne sings that her husband is now “out of my life.”

Check out this cool alternate take, with a melodic twist midway through …

Either way, I think we can safely say these two rushed into this marriage.

Not so with Freda Payne and this song. One of the more delicious postscripts of this saga is that “Band of Gold” became literally that: the first gold record for Payne, a No. 3 hit on Billboard in the U.S. and a No. 1 smash in the United Kingdom.

Its legacy has lived on and on.

Covered by others numerous times, “Band of Gold” in 1986 gave us not not one but two cover versions of “Band of Gold” by popular singers, one by Bonnie Tyler that rises to her quintessentially delightful bombast, one by Belinda Carlisle (with Payne herself on backup vocals).

In this Solid Gold performance, Carlisle and Payne basically perform as a duet.

But we need to end on this solo live performance by the original. Introduced in 2003 by Slayed by Voices cameo star Lou Rawls, Payne sings in her 60s with at least as much energy as she did in 30 years earlier— and I’m gonna say this — an absolute killer body. You’ve gotta watch.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s all gold.

1. Dozier, along with Brian and Eddie Holland, had formed Invictus Records after leaving Motown two years earlier. For legal reasons, they couldn’t use their names for the songwriting credit, combining themselves into the pseudonym Edythe White. One or more of them were behind such Motown classics as “Please Mr. Postman” and “Heat Wave.”