"Undercover Angel" was a hit single for singer/songwriter
Alan O'Day. Certified gold, it reached #1 on the Billboard Hot
100 (with #4 for the year of 1977) and #9 on the Australian
Singles Chart.
Alan O'Day, a Hollywood-native, had scored some B-movies in
the 1960s, and in 1971 became a songwriter for Warner Brothers
Music. He had written hit songs for other artists such as Helen
Reddy, Bobby Sherman, Cher, and the Righteous Brothers. In
1977, Warner Brothers Music decided to form a special label for
their composers who also performed. O'Day was the first artist
signed, and the first release was "Undercover Angel."
The song, which O'Day described as a "nocturnal novelette,"
was released without fanfare in February 1977. But within a few
months it had become #1 in the country, even without an album
to support it. O'Day said about the experience, "It's wonderful
when you find out what feels right, and then it also feels
right to other people. That's a songwriter's dream."[1]
The song begins with a man commiserating his loneliness,
when a woman suddenly appears in his bed, and encourages him to
make love to her. The rest of the song describes his feelings
about her, then he discovers she must leave him, and he is
saddened. She tells him to "go find the right one, love her and
then, when you look into her eyes you'll see me again."
He then explains that was his story, as apparently he has
been singing this song to a woman whom he is trying to seduce,
and how he wants to look in her eyes to see if she is the
reincarnation of the angel he found.