What a Fool Believes

Shocker.

Number one hit, What a Fool Believes.

And I had this number two.

Let's let him sing the chorus because it's great.

It's another sort of sad sack song.

It's a guy trying to imagine a romance that doesn't exist or maybe never did.

It's what a fool believes.

And when you're in love, you're foolish.

But the next album, right, the next album had my Doobies song.

what a fool believes.

And this is, this is to me, the, the yacht rock theme song.

So let's hear it.

Slay for you baby every day of the week.

Remember when a song could explain your entire dating life in four minutes? What a Fool Believes by the Doobie Brothers is basically a musical warning label for delusional romance.

Michael McDonald wrote the song about a guy who meets an old flame in a restaurant and completely misreads the situation.

She's moved on.

And somehow, decades later, it's still the soundtrack for every guy who says, she definitely still likes me.

Here's the Doobie Brothers.

This is called What a Fool Believes.

Vinyl on Chrome.

Tony King finished on six, Carol on four, Roger and Tony on six, Mad Max, good luck later.

Uh, they were Joe Fagan, That's Living Alright, The Commodores, Machine Gun, The Doobie, Doobie Do Brothers, What A Fool Believes, and The Spinners, Could It Be I'm Falling In Love.

Just for starters.

Want some more a bit quicker? Joe Fagan, That's Living Alright, The Commodores, Machine Gun, Doobie Brothers, What A Fool Believes, Detroit Spinners, Could It Be I'm Falling In Love.

Just for starters.

Don't do it.

My response? What an idiot.

I had worked at several radio stations by that time and thought I had a pretty good feel for which songs would last and which ones wouldn't.

So I did what any mature, level-headed person would do.

I wrote him a letter, a nastygram, if you will, telling him exactly how wrong he was.

Oh.

Doobie Brothers had a song called What a Fool Believes.

[laughs]

That might apply to me in this case.

He became famous in the mid-70s with the Doobie Brothers and we had two of their tracks above.

It was Minute by Minute and What a Fool Believes, both classics.

His background vocals were part of the sound of the 70s and 80s and he often sang harmony, every single harmony himself.

A And you may have noticed he appears as a guest vocalist on many of the Yacht Rock songs by other artists on the show.

Well, I'll share just a quick story in that there was one year when I was with my former partner, and I woke up, and I was going through a difficult time in my life, and I was listening to yacht rock kind of all the time.

And I woke up on Christmas morning and threw in Michael McDonald's Greatest Hits in the CD player and was listening to What a Fool Believes on Christmas morning.

And my partner came out of the shower and looked at me just, like, red in the face, just, like, enraged.

And [laughs] I was like, "What? What's going on?" He goes, "It's Christmas.

[laughs]

So my [laughs] my answer is I will always default to the Doobie Brothers.

I will always default to What a Fool Believes.

You can't get that Doobie bounce.

The Doobie Brothers close out First Bank Amphitheater's currently announced 2026 concert series with their Walk This Road Tour.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band's catalog includes Listen to the Music, Long Train Run in China Grove, and What a Fool Believes.

The concert will take place on Sunday, October 11th at 8 p.m. You can find your tickets at www.ticketmaster.com. That's all for this edition of Southern Middle Tennessee Today on Kennedy Broadcasting WKOM-WKRM Radio.

If you ever miss a part or all of this broadcast, you can listen to it anytime or read the transcript online by visiting frontporchradiotn.com. It's always there for you.