By admin 
INTRODUCTION
The scent of evaporating stage fog often lingers in the wings of the Westgate Las Vegas Resort long after the final spectator has departed. For Barry Manilow, the man who engineered the melodic landscape of the late twentieth century, this silence is not merely an absence of sound, but a profound presence. In the twilight of a career spanning over five decades, the architect of “Mandy” and “Copacabana” has increasingly pivoted toward a narrative of poignant transparency. This shift is most visible in the conceptual framework of “Once Before I Go,” where the artifice of the entertainer is stripped away to reveal the staggering cost of a life lived in the unrelenting glare of the spotlight.
THE DETAILED STORY
The narrative architecture of “Once Before I Go” functions as a meta-textual confession, a rarity for a performer who maintained a meticulous veil over his private affairs for the majority of his career. In the visual and lyrical arc of the piece, Manilow assumes the role of a quintessential artist—a figure who, by necessity or perhaps by an inescapable calling, forfeits the mundane joys of domesticity for the ephemeral warmth of the proscenium arch. This is not merely a performance; it is a retrospective accounting of the sacrifices made since his early days in Brooklyn. The character portrayed is one who watches milestones pass from a distance, traded for the $2.0$ billion in box office revenue and the adoration of millions that have defined his professional trajectory.
Throughout his tenure as a paragon of American pop, Manilow’s personal narrative was a subject of intense speculation until his landmark confirmation of his relationship with Garry Kief on April 05, 2017. This revelation added a layer of retroactive nuance to his body of work. “Once Before I Go” serves as the bridge between the public icon and the private man. The video’s narrative tension resides in the dichotomy between the “Manilow” the world demands—vibrant, melodic, and immortal—and the Barry who recognizes the ticking clock of a legacy. It raises the inevitable question of whether the immortality of a song is a fair exchange for the fleeting intimacy of a quiet evening at home.
The sophistication of this narrative lies in its refusal to offer easy sentimentality. Instead, it presents the sacrifice as a deliberate, albeit heavy, choice. Manilow’s character in the video acknowledges that the stage is a jealous mistress, one that provides a unique form of sustenance while simultaneously starving other aspects of the human experience. As he delivers the final notes, there is a sense of inevitable resolution. He is a man who has built a cathedral of music, yet he remains the solitary inhabitant of its most sacred spaces. The performance stands as a definitive statement on the burden of genius: to give everything to the audience is to leave the self with a beautiful, echoing emptiness.