Songfacts®:

• Barry Manilow named his fourth studio album after this love song, which he wrote with his longtime friend and collaborator Marty Panzer. It's about singing his heart out on a song that will never sell just so he can get a message to an old flame he lost track of.
  
  "I remember the exact moment when Marty read me this lyric. I was hooked from the very first line, 'This one'll never sell.' It wouldn't have mattered if the rest of the lyric had been about a lamb chop, I loved it. When he read me the rest, I couldn't wait to get to the piano because I could hear the melody in my head," the singer recalled in the liner notes to his 1992 compilation, The Complete Collection And Then Some.
  
  "It's a real beautiful sentiment - one of Marty's most heartfelt. I'm proud to have been able
  to write the music."
• Manilow had written romantic songs before on his own - one of his early tunes was the aching ballad "Could It Be Magic" - but this was the first proper love song he wrote with Panzer, his "New York City Rhythm" co-writer.
  
  "The first love song we ever wrote," Panzer noted. "It sounds young and innocent because we were."
• Aside from peaking in the Top 30 of the Hot 100, this also went to #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart. Most of Manilow's AC hits were written by other songwriters, but a few of them, like this one, were originals.
• Around the time this reached its peak on the charts, Manilow spoke with The Los Angeles Times about the criticism he faced despite his popularity.
  
  "Some say I'm too middle-of-the-road, some say I'm too bubblegum, some say I'm trying to replace Perry Como, some say this, some say that," he said. "I'd be a fool to worry about the negative stuff because I'm not going to change what I do. I like it and so do a lot of other people."
  
  His next single, "Weekend In New England," confirmed his belief: It peaked at #10 on the Hot 100, and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
• The album was certified Platinum in January 1977 for selling 1 million copies in the US. In 1987, around the time he issued Swing Street, it earned double-Platinum status.
• R&B singer Teddy Pendergrass recorded this for his 1982 album, also titled This One's For You.