How Kim Carnes transformed a forgotten song into a 1981 classic: “Beer-barrel polka piano”Normally, if someone hasn’t had their breakout pop hit by the time they’ve turned 35, they’ll normally accept that it’s never going to happen for them. In the case of Kim Carnes, her sudden thrust into the spotlight couldn’t have come at a more unlikely time in her career. Since Carnes was not a songwriter herself, the duo went searching for songs that suited Carnes’ raspy and hoarse vocal style so that she could comfortably reinterpret them for her next record. “It sounds like a Leon Russell track,” he later confessed, “With this beer-barrel polka piano part, but I loved the melody, and I loved the lyrics.” With the assistance of keyboard player Bill Cuomo, who arranged the song for Carnes, they put together a band, and history was made.