Raspberries – I Wanna Be With You

This song is for Song Lyric Sunday for Jim Adams’s blog. This week’s prompt is (drum roll please…) a forgotten band. I picked The Raspberries but also talked about Badfinger and Big Star. 

I still remember the first time I heard this song on AM radio. I must have been around 7 or 8, walking into my sister’s wood-paneled room. It was playing on WMAK, a station I’ll never forget. The disc jockey, Coyote McCloud, was a legend in Nashville back in the early seventies—everyone tuned in to hear him. It’s funny how clearly I can recall that moment like it was just yesterday.

I wasn’t lucky enough to be a teenager in the 1970s, but whenever I listen to The Raspberries, it feels like I’m transported back in time. I can picture myself in 1973, driving my first car with their greatest hits blasting, feeling the freedom and excitement of the era. The music has a way of making it real.

I’ve always considered the top three power pop bands to be Big Star, Badfinger, and The Raspberries. Together, they captured everything that makes power pop great… soaring vocals, great melodies, and that perfect balance of guitar crunch and jangle. What an incredible time for the genre, with all three bands active at the same moment in history. They may not have found the level of commercial success they deserved, but their influence on music has been huge. 

These bands didn’t just define power pop… they set the standard for what the genre could be. Badfinger and The Raspberries managed to crack the Top 20 a few times, but Big Star didn’t even get that far…which is nothing short of a crime. Bands like Cheap Trick, Tom Petty, KISS, REM, The Cars, and The Replacements owe them a lot. These three bands do pop up every once in a while. The Raspberries Go All The Way was in the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, Badfinger’s Baby Blue was in the last episode of Breaking Bad, and Big Star’s In The Street was the theme song to That Seventies Show. 

The Raspberries were more than just a band…they were a Cleveland supergroup, formed from the city’s best local acts. The lineup was indeed super… Eric Carmen as the lead singer and rhythm guitarist, Wally Bryson on lead guitar with his signature crunchy riffs, Jim Bonfanti on drums, and Dave Smalley on bass. Their sound was a seamless blend of their influences—The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks, and The Beach Boys—woven together into power pop perfection.

The Raspberries did have 7 singles to chart and 4 top forty hits with I Wanna Be With You being one of them. This song peaked at #16 on the Billboard 100 and #17 in Canada in 1973.  It was the first single from their second LP, Fresh.[It became their second-greatest US hit. They broke up in 1975 after releasing their album Starting Over. Eric Carmen wrote this song. 

Their best-known song was Go All The Way which peaked at #5 in 1972. 

Alex Chilton (Big Star): “I remember when I first heard the Raspberries, Big Star was in a van traveling around doing some dates and we heard Go All the Way on the radio, and we said, ‘Wow, those guys are really doing it!’ I thought that was a great song.”

 

I Wanna Be With You

If we were older we wouldn’t have to be worried tonight
Baby oh I want to be with you so bad
Oh baby I want to be with you
Oh yeah?
Well tonight tonight we always knew it would feel so right
So come oh baby, I just want to be with you

Someday’s a long time and we’ve been waiting so long to be here
Baby oh I want to be with you so bad
Oh baby I want to be with you
Oh yeah?
Well tonight tonight we always knew it would feel so right
So come oh baby, I just want to be with you

Hold me tight our love could live forever after tonight
If you believe in what you’re doing is right
Close your eyes and be still

Baby, oh I want to be with you so bad
Oh baby I want to be with you
Oh yeah?
Well tonight tonight we always knew it would feel so right
So come oh baby, I just want to be with you

Oh I want to be with you so bad
Oh baby I want to be with you
Oh yeah?
Baby I want to be with you so bad

 

 

 

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

58 thoughts on “Raspberries – I Wanna Be With You”

  1. Such corny lyrics, but eh! It happens to work for lovesick people! Ha! Think of Tonight’s the Night, and I Only Want to be with You. Many more similar ‘get together’ type of songs.
    I did like the Raspberries though I liked all the other bands better that you named in the sentence with Kiss, REM, Cheap Trick, etc. And I didn’t know Eric Carmen was in the Raspberries! WOW!
    Is that why they broke up? So Eric could do his solo stuff?

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    1. When you are a teen though…those lyrics work! lol.
      I never liked his solo career as much…but I LOVED the Raspberries…but I would rank them for me…Big Star, Badfinger, and then the Raspberries.
      No…they released their last album in 1975 and had a masterpiece of a song called “Overnight Sensation” (it’s epic) and it only reached 18…and they gave it up….and he then went on to his solo career. John Lennon was a fan as well…and Springsteen

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      1. Oh, teenage years. Ha! I was an Aerosmith head though. Can you believe I never remember hearing Overnight Sensation? I just played it and nope! Never heard it.
        I had a friend a few years older than me who LOVED Eric Carmen, so that’s why I asked. I only recall a couple of his songs myself. Hehe

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      2. I can only imagine how long it took them to record it because it’s in sections. I love the harmony in it. It probably wasn’t played a lot.
        Yea I like the rougher stuff usually…I did like some of this solo songs but prefer this band.

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    1. I love the Raspberries Randy…I really do. For me this and those two other bands define power pop.
      Yea he did…I wish they would have lasted a little longer.

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      2. LOL…well from what I read it was because their album Starting Over didn’t hit like they thought it should. For me…their best song was on it…Overnight Sensation. It’s an epic song. I’ll be posting it soon with others…I’m going to call it “Overlooked Masterpieces” and that one is great.

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  5. A new one on me, but then the only song of theirs that I can recall is Overnight Sensation, which was great. Being a Brit, I’d move Badfinger to the top of your big three list 😊

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    1. Overnight Sensation is epic I agree completely but I’ve already posted it. Well my blog is named after Badfinger so I split the difference!

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  6. I didn’t know Carmen was in that band. I checked out of rock in the 70s, too involved in the progressive Texas country thang, so if it wasn’t JJW, Willie or Waylon, I didn’t listen. Big Star was a great band, as well as Badfinger( gotta love that name). Back in the 60s, I would make a trip to Memphis TN about 3 times a year. My best friend played guitar in my band and his aunt and uncle lived there. His cousin played in the Gentry’s, and his other cousin played drums for Paul Revere and The Raiders, so whenever we went, we were immersed in the local Memphis music scene. It was like the scene in DFW, everybody knew everyone else. All those Memphis guys were born with a pound of soul, it was just natural to them.

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    1. I can relate Phil. I grew up in the 80s and the most of the main stream I just couldn’t relate to so I lived in a 60s and 70s bubble for that decade for the most part. I’m learning now about a lot of music I missed at the time.

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  7. You know when you sometimes just need to listen to the first bars of a song and you just know you’re gonna love? That’s how I feel about “I Wanna Be With.” This jangly guitar intro immediately hooked me!

    The Raspberries are another group I know nearly enough about. Looks like I only covered them once or twice. Okay, their name has just been added to my Sunday Six list of earmarked bands and artists! 🙂

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    1. It makes you feel so good doesn’t it? Just the intro IS enough but I love when they do the breakdown in the song. Their best song to me…is Overnight Sensation…it’s EPIC…recorded in sections.
      Yes…I hate doing this to all of you today lol…three posts but I wanted to get into Jim’s prompt this week.

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    1. LOL… yea I always said that the Holy Trinity was The Beatles, The Who, and The Stones… It only made it to #16 so I see why. I’ve already posted Go All The Way so I didn’t post that one. Thank you for the comments Nancy I appreciate it.

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    1. Yea it only made it to #16 and wasn’t played like the other butt they do have a lot of songs that were great.
      I was talking to Stewart from UK #1’s….Dave…he had a Number 1 from 1999 or 2000 by Robbie Williams…called “She’s The One”….well I knew the song but not his version. He carbon copied that World Party song to a tee. They are so close its scary…but yet the World Party version didn’t hit at all earlier….that shows you…it’s not the song’s fault…its if it gets pushed.

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    1. That is very cool…yes they did have that sound….along with Big Star…all of those bands resembled each other. The Raspberries and Badfinger played on some bills together…oh how I would have LOVED to have seen that.

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    1. Wow…I can’t believe you saw him…that is really cool. Glad you got to see them. He had such a great out of this world voice. They regrouped around the turn of the century…he looked about the same then. They sounded even better than they did back then.

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    1. Yes…I should have included that but it depresses me. I was taking a break from blogging when it happened and the way I found out was that all of my Raspberries posts were surging…I then looked up why.

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  18. oh yes, and that opening to Go All the Way is one of the best ever…along with Free, yes Badfinger, and for that opening to Cheap Trick’s version of Terry Reid’s Speak Now (Reid’s is so cool too)….hey you’re into Brit Pop, I keep racking may brain trying to remember who did the Stack Heal Strutt?

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    1. Now I’m thinking…is it Stacked or Stack? you have me on that one. I just tried to search ofr it and couldnt find it.
      Well…add another to one of my posts…I had forgot about Speak Now….I have to do that. Thanks Warren!

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      1. I dug into Chat GPT, Wrathchild, Stackheel Strutt…part of my misspent youth, Kerrang ruled my life back then….I think I still have the Crash Bang Wallop Raven EP somewhere…lol

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      2. LOL…that song sounds great! I never heard it before but that band rings a bell to me somewhere.

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