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LINDA RONSTADT’S “HOW DO I MAKE YOU” HIT THE NEW DECADE RUNNING

The first seconds of “How Do I Make You” leave little room to settle in. The drums push forward, the guitars bite, and Linda Ronstadt enters with a voice that sounds restless and determined. For listeners who knew her through “Blue Bayou” or “When Will I Be Loved,” it was an unmistakable change of pace. As the 1980s began, Ronstadt seemed eager to find out what else her voice could do.

By then, she had spent years at the center of American popular music. She could bring a country song close enough to hear its heartbreak, then turn around and fill a rock performance with heat and force. That range had made her famous, but success can create expectations of its own. Audiences recognize a sound, radio welcomes another version of it, and a singer can be asked to repeat what has already worked. “How Do I Make You” caught Ronstadt at a moment when she chose a sharper edge.

The song was written by Billy Steinberg, whose band Billy Thermal had recorded demos that reached Ronstadt through its guitarist. She chose “How Do I Make You” for Mad Love, released in 1980, and placed it at the very beginning of the album. It was an effective introduction to a record that drew on the energy of new wave while keeping Ronstadt’s powerful voice at its center. Billy Steinberg

What makes the recording exciting is how fully she commits to its pace. Ronstadt does not ease into the song or smooth away its rougher edges. She sings as though the question in the title has been troubling her for some time: how do you make another person feel what you feel? The band gives her no quiet space in which to work it out. The rhythm keeps moving, turning romantic uncertainty into something urgent and almost physical.

That tension gives the song more depth than its speed might suggest. On the surface, it is bright, loud, and built to be played with the volume up. Beneath that rush is a familiar frustration. Wanting someone’s attention can make a person bold one moment and painfully unsure the next. Ronstadt captures both feelings. Her voice has the strength to drive the song, but the question she sings remains unanswered.

The sound also reflected a changing musical landscape. At the turn of the decade, the compact punch of new wave was finding a place alongside the polished rock and pop that had dominated much of the 1970s. Ronstadt did not have to become a different singer to meet that moment. She brought her own experience to it, showing that the same voice capable of lingering over a ballad could race through a song without losing its emotional weight. The single reached the Billboard Hot 100 Top 10, giving this change in direction a wide audience. Rhino Media

On April 24, 1980, Ronstadt performed “How Do I Make You” at Television Center Studios in Hollywood during a concert filmed for HBO. Watching that performance, the song feels immediate in a different way. There is a band responding to her in real time and a singer who appears entirely at home with the song’s demands. She drives into each phrase, then lets the musicians carry the momentum into the next. The concert recording was later included on Live in Hollywood, released in 2019. Rhino Media

That live version offers a vivid glimpse of Ronstadt in 1980. She was an established star, yet she still sounded curious about where a song could take her. “How Do I Make You” asked for speed, force, and a little abandon, and she gave it all three. More than four decades later, its opening still has the power to catch a listener off guard. The guitars arrive, the rhythm surges, and Ronstadt is already moving—chasing an answer she may never get, with the whole band racing beside her.

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