Born to Be With You

He wasn’t happy with it – Dion called it “funeral music” – and it tanked on its release, but Born To Be With You has good claim to being Dion DiMucci’s finest album, or at very least, one of his best. It’s partly to do with the depth of Phil Spector’s production, which grants everything here immense gravitas; the opening title song, overflowing with a tide of yearning, is heartbreaking. Everything here is elegiac, moving slowly, gracefully; music made for weeping. And yet, one of the album’s most profound moments, DiMucci’s rueful reflection on addiction, “Your Own Back Yard,” was imported in from other sessions (with Phil Gernhard, not Spector); that it sits so well on the album is testament to the world of melancholy created here.