Saturday In The Park performance
Chicago perform their classic hit song Saturday In The Park on The Queen Latifah Show.
If You Leave Me Now
0 CommentsChicago releases If You Leave Me Now as a single. It becomes their first #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Written by Peter Cetera. James Pankow:
With the enormous success of If You Leave Me Now radio decided that that was Chicago’s sound on radio. And I can’t tell you how many attempts we made at pushing up-tempo songs to get on records and fans would come up to us and go, ‘What happened to you guys? You’ve been eating too much pabulum. What happened to that, you know, the guts and the soul and the funk that you guys had back when.
Just You ‘n’ Me
0 CommentsChicago releases Just You ‘n’ Me as a single and it reaches #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Written by James Pankow, who says:
But yes, I do flash on the moment that I wrote that song, and how it came about, the fact that we had had an enormous quarrel, and rather than focus on negative energy I went out to the piano and poured emotion into a song instead, it happened quite spontaneously, and the magic of the occasion of writing that song has never quite happened like that since.
Dialogue (Part I and II)
0 CommentsChicago releases Dialogue (Part I and II) as a single that reaches #24 on the US Billboard Hot 100. It is written by Robert Lamm:
It’s amazing how pertinent and timely those lyrics remain. Obviously when the songs were written it was a very tumultuous time in our country and the world. That’s the time in a young man’s life that you can change things from the bottom up.
Saturday in the Park
0 CommentsChicago releases Saturday in the Park as a single that reaches #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, the band’s highest-charting single to date. It is written by Robert Lamm. James Pankow:
You know one of my — again, this is my personal thing — one of my MO’s, you might say, is to get out there every night and if I can play every note in that song, I don’t care if I’ve played it a million times, if I can make every note count, then before I know it the song is over. Because I’m so absorbed in playing that song perfectly that that becomes a challenge within the song.
Colour My World re-release
0 CommentsChicago re-releases Colour My World as a single after it was previously released as the B-side to Make Me Smile in 1970. This release reaches #7 on the US Billboard Hot 100 Chart. It is written by James Pankow:
There again, utter simplicity. Color My World — utterly simple. You know, songs, I could name many many more, it seems that the songs that become standards are songs that you can hum, songs that are instantly relatable.
Beginnings re-release
0 CommentsChicago re-releases Beginnings as a single after it was previously released on their debut album The Chicago Transit Authority in October 1969. As a single, Beginnings reaches #7 on the US Billboard Hot 100 Chart. It is written by Robert Lamm:
…whenever we play Beginnings I always think of the girl that I was with when I wrote : Beginnings — at the beginning. Because for me, when I’m singing one of the songs that I wrote, I always go back to when I wrote it, the moment that I wrote it.
Free
0 CommentsChicago releases Free as a single that reaches #20 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart. It is written by Robert Lamm. James Pankow:
The song Free is just, it’s a kind of song that’s up-tempo and frenetic and grooving, and the horns just become a different participant in that type of song. It’s not an instrumental lead.
Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon
0 CommentsChicago releases Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon as part of their album Chicago. It is a nearly 13 minute song composed by James Pankow:
A Girl From Buchannon. That was my first true love and she enrolled as a student at the University of West Virginia, in Buchannon West Virginia, and so that was a piece with her in mind.
Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?
0 CommentsChicago releases Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is? as a single that reaches #7 in the Billboard Hot 100, making it the band’s third straight Top 10 single after Make Me Smile and 25 or 6 to 4. It is written by Robert Lamm:
Well, I’ve always been kind of intrigued with the idea of time, and how we attempt to keep track of it, and you know, I talk in other songs about crossing over into other dimensions, even temporarily, on any given day. But “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is” is just kind of recounting an experience I had when I was a teenager, where I asked somebody what time it was and he said. “Does anybody really know what time it is?”
25 or 6 to 4
0 CommentsChicago releases 25 or 6 to 4 as a single and it reaches #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. Written by Robert Lamm. James Pankow:
A 25 or 6 to 4! We’ve been one up-tempo song short for 30 years, man. You know, 25 or 6 to 4 is the encore song, every night, I don’t care where we are, when it is, that song has to be the closer of the show, because that is the rock ‘n’ roll anthem from this band. There ain’t any others.
