The 1990s File Feature
Not The Only One
Not The Only One: Bonnie Raitt's 1992 Hit from Luck of the Draw By the time Bonnie Raitt released "Not the Only One" as a single in 1992, she had already com…
01 The Story
Not The Only One: Bonnie Raitt's 1992 Hit from Luck of the Draw
By the time Bonnie Raitt released "Not the Only One" as a single in 1992, she had already completed one of the most remarkable career turnarounds in popular music history. After nearly two decades of critically acclaimed but commercially modest recordings for Warner Bros. Records, she had been dropped by the label in 1989. Her subsequent album Nick of Time, released on Capitol Records in 1989 and produced by Don Was, had won four Grammy Awards including Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female, launching her into a level of mainstream commercial success she had not previously experienced.
The follow-up album Luck of the Draw, also produced by Don Was and released on Capitol Records in June 1991, was even more commercially successful than its predecessor. It entered the Billboard 200 at number 2, eventually selling more than seven million copies in the United States and earning Raitt multiple additional Grammy nominations. The album's commercial performance reflected the extent to which Nick of Time had transformed her audience, bringing her from a respected cult figure to a mainstream star capable of generating multi-platinum sales on the strength of a new release.
"Not the Only One" was written by Bonnie Hayes, a San Francisco-based songwriter and musician who had previously placed songs with Bette Midler and other artists. Hayes crafted a lyric with the kind of sophisticated emotional intelligence that suited Raitt's interpretive strengths perfectly, and the production on the track reflected the polished but organic approach that Don Was had established as the characteristic sound of the Raitt renaissance. The arrangement featured Raitt's distinctive slide guitar work alongside a rhythm section that pushed the song forward with a kind of casual authority.
The single debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 18, 1992 at position 85. The song climbed steadily through the spring and early summer: 75 on April 25, 61 on May 2, 49 on May 9, and 43 by May 16. The continued climb brought it to its peak of number 34 on the Hot 100 during the week of June 13, 1992, completing a chart run of 17 weeks that reflected strong adult contemporary radio support across the country.
On the Adult Contemporary chart, "Not the Only One" performed considerably better than its pop position suggested, reaching the top 5 and receiving extended airplay from stations that had made Raitt a cornerstone of their programming since Nick of Time had broken her commercially. This adult contemporary success was characteristic of her work during this period, as her audience skewed toward listeners who were loyal to artists rather than to trends and who continued to request her recordings long after the initial promotional push had ended.
The music video for the single featured Raitt in performance contexts that highlighted her comfort and authority as a live musician, consistent with her longstanding reputation as one of the most accomplished performers in American rock and pop. Her slide guitar playing, which she had developed over decades of study and performance in blues and rock contexts, was prominently featured in the visual presentation, reminding audiences of the musical substance that underpinned her commercial success.
Luck of the Draw produced three other significant singles alongside "Not the Only One," including "Something to Talk About," which became one of the biggest hits of Raitt's career, and "I Can't Make You Love Me," which has been widely covered and sampled in the years since and is now considered one of the definitive recordings of its era. The album stands as the commercial and creative peak of Raitt's career, and "Not the Only One" occupies a significant position within it as one of its most radio-friendly and emotionally direct moments.
The song's success confirmed that the Nick of Time breakthrough had not been a fluke, that Raitt had genuinely found both an aesthetic approach and an audience that could sustain multi-album commercial success at a level she had never previously achieved. Her partnership with Don Was proved to be one of the most productive artist-producer collaborations of the early 1990s, and the recordings they made together during this period represent the fullest realization of her considerable talents as both a vocalist and an instrumentalist.
02 Song Meaning
Romantic Realism: The Meaning of Not The Only One
"Not the Only One" addresses one of the most emotionally complex situations in romantic life: the moment when one partner suspects or knows that the other's affections are divided, and must decide how to respond to that knowledge. The song's narrator is neither naive nor furious; she occupies a position of clear-eyed realism about the relationship's current state, and the lyric reflects this clarity with considerable precision. This emotional sophistication was one of the reasons the song connected so strongly with the adult contemporary audience that had made Bonnie Raitt a mainstream star by the early 1990s.
Bonnie Hayes's lyrical construction refuses the conventional dramatic responses to romantic betrayal. The narrator does not catastrophize or collapse; she does not make ultimatums or threaten departure. Instead, she simply names what is happening with an almost forensic accuracy, acknowledging the situation without pretending it is acceptable or without dramatizing her response beyond what the moment actually calls for. This restraint is the song's most distinctive quality and the source of much of its emotional power.
The theme of romantic possession and its limits runs through the lyric with considerable nuance. The narrator's insight, that she is not the only one, is presented not as a discovery but as a recognition of something she has known for some time and has chosen to face directly. The song does not specify how this knowledge was acquired, which gives the listener room to bring their own experience to the narrative. What matters is not the means of discovery but the emotional position from which the narrator now speaks.
Bonnie Raitt's vocal performance on the recording is a masterclass in emotional restraint. Her voice carries the weight of the situation without tipping into melodrama, which would be the easier and less honest response to the material. The blues-inflected quality of her delivery, shaped by decades of work in that tradition, gives the performance a kind of lived-in authority that makes the emotional observation feel genuine rather than performed.
The adult contemporary context shaped how the song's themes were received. By 1992, adult contemporary radio was the format most attuned to music that engaged with the emotional complexity of long-term romantic relationships, addressing listeners who had enough life experience to appreciate nuance over simplicity. The songs that performed best in this format during this period were often those that acknowledged the difficulty of love without resolving that difficulty through fantasy or wishful thinking. "Not the Only One" fit this pattern precisely.
The song's meaning extends beyond its specific romantic narrative to a broader observation about the nature of commitment and its limits. The narrator's position, knowing she is not her partner's sole focus and having to decide what to do with that knowledge, is one that many listeners have occupied in one form or another. The song's gift is to articulate this position with sufficient clarity that it becomes a form of recognition, giving shape to an experience that many people have lived but few have been able to name as precisely. This quality of precise emotional recognition, rendered with grace and without self-pity, is characteristic of the best writing from this period of Raitt's career.
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