Tuesday, January 16, 2007

"Saturday in the Park"

Last time I wrote how sometimes it's difficult to just let music wash over you and just act as aural wallpaper. Today, I'm going to suggest that a particular song can be like stepping into a hot shower on a cold morning. No matter what the particular song is - it can be post-punk industrial for some, and the most saccharine gloop for others.
The point is to underline, to emphasise how the right music taps into our individual psyches and just....does something. Not that I'm suggesting a particular song may necessarily confer superpowers or X-ray vision, but there are moments.....
This song does all of that for me, and normally I wouldn't even have the time of day for Chicago (the unhinged "25 or 6 to 4" excepted).
Maybe it's the slightly funky piano intro, with that chocolate layer of horns on top, drifting slowly downwards, maybe it's the backbeat chorus with the blasts of brass, but whenever I hear this, I can open the convertible top in my head and just sit back and drink in the sunshine. I may be wearing a suit in the middle of winter in London, but in my head I'm in shorts, cruising south on Route 1 with the windows wide open.
I won't answer for the video - it's from 1973 - but it does set a mood. The song lasts only 3 minutes, but you get a bonus of "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is," which only serves to demonstrate how talented this band really was.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am an unabashed Chicago fan of the Terry Kath era, and it was my first "official" concert in 1973! (solo attendance without a parent constitutes official to me!) Their blend of jazz, rock, blues, and soul stands up to the test of time, and I'll always love the "Chicago Transit Authority," "Chicago II," and "Chicago V" albums! Once Peter Cetera got his meat hooks on the ballads, though, the band lost its shine.

IH said...

Hey hon...have just posted a Pop Quiz on my site (URL is now innergirlreturns.blogspot.com) and people are struggling...we need you!

Jo

Russell CJ Duffy said...

great the way you never seem to mind 'blowing your cred' with songs that come from artists who get slagged off by certain factions.

Alessandro Vitelli said...

CJ:
Cred? What cred?
L