In Linda Ronstadt’s hands, What’ll I Do? becomes a quiet study in absence, where every pause feels as important as every note.
What’ll I Do? began as an Irving Berlin song in 1923, but when Linda Ronstadt recorded it for her 1983 album What’s New, she gave it a different kind of life. She did not treat it like a museum piece, and she did not over-sing its sadness. Instead, she sang it with extraordinary restraint, letting the ache arrive gently, almost conversationally. That choice is a large part of why her version still lingers. The song itself was not one of her major pop-chart singles, but it lived on an album that rose to No. 3 on the Billboard 200, a remarkable showing for a traditional pop record in the early 1980s. In other words, this was not simply a side trip. It was one of the boldest and most graceful turns of her career.
To understand why the recording matters so much, it helps to remember where Linda Ronstadt stood at that moment. By the time What’s New arrived, she had already built a towering reputation through rock, country-rock, pop, and contemporary ballads. Audiences knew her from records that felt modern, radio-ready, and emotionally direct. Then she took a path that many people did not expect: she devoted herself to the classic American standard, partnering with the legendary arranger Nelson Riddle. For listeners who grew up loving great songwriting, it was one of those rare artistic decisions that felt both surprising and completely right. Ronstadt had the vocal discipline, musical intelligence, and emotional honesty to make these older songs breathe again.
On What’ll I Do?, the genius lies in what she refuses to do. She does not push the lyric into melodrama. She does not chase a grand climax. The song is built on a simple question, almost painfully simple: what happens after someone is gone and the ordinary hours have to continue? That is the wound at the center of the lyric. Berlin wrote many songs of wit and sophistication, but here he wrote with disarming plainness. The pain is not dressed up. It is domestic, personal, and immediate. Ronstadt understands that perfectly. She sings as though she is not performing heartbreak for a crowd, but quietly admitting it to herself.
The arrangement by Nelson Riddle is essential to that effect. His orchestration never smothers the melody. It surrounds Ronstadt with a soft, elegant frame, leaving room for breath, hesitation, and emotional shading. That balance is what made the What’s New sessions so special. Riddle had helped define the sound of great vocal records for earlier generations, and here he found a singer who respected space as much as power. Ronstadt’s voice, so often celebrated for strength and clarity, becomes almost translucent on this track. The phrasing is careful but never cold. She sounds vulnerable without ever sounding weak, and that is a far harder thing to achieve than a dramatic vocal peak.
There is also a deeper story behind this recording. Ronstadt had loved traditional pop for years, and singing with Nelson Riddle was not a novelty move or a calculated gesture toward prestige. It was a realization of something she genuinely cherished. Produced by Peter Asher, the What’s New album opened a new chapter in her career and helped reintroduce many listeners to the richness of the Great American Songbook. For some, it was an education. For others, it was a return. Either way, it proved that songs built on melody, lyric, and emotional nuance could still find a large audience. That is part of the reason the album’s No. 3 chart peak mattered so much: it showed that elegance had not disappeared, and neither had attention spans for subtle feeling.
The meaning of What’ll I Do? is often misunderstood if we think of it only as a sad love song. It is sad, certainly, but its sadness is unusually mature. This is not a song about spectacle. It is about the empty space left behind in routine, in memory, in the quiet moments when distraction fades. The repeated question is the whole point. It tells us that loss is not always experienced as a dramatic breakdown. Sometimes it arrives as uncertainty, as a room that feels too still, as an evening that suddenly seems too long. Ronstadt leans into that truth. Her reading is full of tenderness, but it is also full of recognition. She knows this kind of loneliness is made of small things.
That may be why the performance still carries such power decades later. It belongs to a period when Linda Ronstadt was brave enough to trust timeless material and wise enough not to force it into modern shapes. She met Irving Berlin on his own ground and somehow made the song sound personal to her own era as well. Few singers could bridge those worlds so naturally. Listening now, one hears not only the beauty of an old standard, but the sound of an artist choosing depth over fashion and intimacy over display.
In the end, What’ll I Do? is one of those recordings that reminds us how enduring a quiet performance can be. There are no fireworks here, no big declarations, no needless embellishments. Just a great song, a great singer, and an arrangement wise enough to leave the heart exposed. That is precisely why it lasts.
