It wasn’t till I started researching this that I realised this distinctive song (particularly the cracked vocal) was part written by Jackie DeShannon. See here and here. It is Kim Carnes’s version that is most familiar to people in the UK, though. The song remains Carnes’s only hit here.
Kim Carnes: Bette Davis Eyes
Jackie DeShannon’s version is, by comparison, much more conventional.
Another song which has the word nonchalant in its lyric, When You Walk in the Room was written and performed by Jackie DeShannon but is more familiar to Britons via the cover version recorded by The Searchers which got to number 3 in the UK 1964. The song’s title is never actually sung in its entirety during its course; only its last four words.
The Searchers: When You Walk in the Room
Here also is Jackie DeShannon with the song on US TV:-
The Band’s The Weight has famously obscure lyrics. Nevertheless I did buy the single way back when and also found a very good version of the Bob Dylan song I Shall Be Released on the B-side.
The first version of The Weight I remember hearing, though, and one that got a bit of airplay at the time, was by Jackie DeShannon. She wrote a good few of the familiar songs from the mid nineteen-sixties including a couple of The Searchers’ hits.
Here she is on You Tube.
For comparison purposes here also is The Band’s original version.
