Category: Music

The Marmalade – Reflections of My Life

This song peaked at #10 in the Billboard 100 in 1970 and #3 in the UK. The Marmalade were more successful in the UK by placing 10 top 10 singles in the UK charts but only charting Reflections of My Life in the Billboard top ten. It’s a song I heard many times when I was younger but didn’t know anything about it.

From Songfacts.

This dramatic ballad from the Age of Aquarius finds the singer describing a very bleak outlook on life and the times. The song was sort of a hippie version of the blues. >>

The Marmalade were a Scottish pop group who enjoyed several hits in the UK between 1968 and 1976. Originally a band called Dean Ford & The Gaylords, they changed their name to Marmalade in 1967. They are best remembered in Britain for their cover of the Beatles song “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” which topped the UK charts around Christmas 1968. In 1969, they signed to Decca Records, and their contract gave them complete freedom to write and produce their own records. The fruits of this arrangement was the recording of this song with its distinctive backwards guitar break, which was their only American hit.

This song was written by vocalist Dean Ford and the band’s main songwriter, keyboardist Junior Campbell. Campbell went on to pen the theme from the British TV series Thomas The Tank Engine, which was narrated in its first two seasons by Ringo Starr.

Reflections of My Life

The changing of sunlight to moonlight
Reflections of my life
Oh, how they fill my eyes

The greetings of people in trouble
Reflections of my life
Oh, how they fill my eyes

Oh, my sorrows
Sad tomorrows
Take me back to my own home

Oh, my crying (Oh, my crying)
Feel I’m dying, dying
Take me back to my own home

I’m changing, arranging
I’m changing
I’m changing everything
Everything around me

The world is
A bad place
A bad place
A terrible place to live
Oh, but I don’t want to die

Oh, my sorrows
Sad tomorrows
Take me back to my own home

Oh, my crying (Oh, my crying)
Feel I’m dying, dying
Take me back to my own home

Oh, my sorrows
Sad tomorrows
Take me back to my own home

 

Supertramp – Give a Little Bit

This is an extremely catchy song by Supertramp off of the album Even in the Quietest Moments… This was before their classic Breakfast In America. The song was inspired by “All You Need Is Love” by the Beatles.

The song peaked at #15 in the Billboard 100, #29 in the UK, and #8  in Canada in 1977.

The song was credited to Roger Hodgson and Rick Davies but Roger Hodgson wrote it. Roger Hodgson’s quote. “The song itself is such a pure, simple message that I think is really especially even more powerful today when the world has even more problems and it’s even more difficult sometimes to be compassionate and caring because we’ve got to put up all these barriers to survive; that it’s a song that really inspires people to give a little bit, not give a lot, just give a little bit and see how it feels and show that you care, and I know for me, every time I play it in concert, there’s something about that song.
I look out and people just start smiling straight away and sometimes they hug each other and they start singing with me. It’s a very unifying song with a beautiful, simple message that I’m very proud of and really enjoy playing today.”

From Songfacts.

Supertramp singer/guitarist Roger Hodgson wrote this song when he was a teenager, but didn’t record it until much later. It was about five years between when he wrote the song and when he brought it to the band. When we spoke with Hodgson in 2012, he explained: “I think it’s a great song. I didn’t realize it was when I first wrote it. It actually took me six years before I even brought it to the band. But I wrote it I think around 1970. That time, the late ’60s, early ’70s, was a very idealistic time, one of hope, a lot of peace and love and the dream of the ’60s was still very alive and maturing if you like. 

That song has really taken on a life of its own, and I think it’s even more relevant today than when I wrote it. Because we really are needing to value love in a much deeper way, and also we’re needing to care. The song is basically saying: just show you care. You know, reach out and show you care. So in concert, it’s the perfect show closer because what I try to do in my show over two hours is unify the audience and unify all of us. So that at the end, when everyone stands up for ‘Give A Little Bit,’ they’re open and ready to open their hearts and sing at the top of their lungs and go away with a smile on their face. And that song really does, it has a very pure energy. The moment I start, people just start smiling. It’s amazing.”

Give A Little Bit

Give a little bit
Give a little bit of your love to me
Give a little bit
I’ll give a little bit of my love to you
There’s so much that we need to share
Send a smile and show you care

I’ll give a little bit
I’ll give a little bit of my life for you
So give a little bit
Give a little bit of your time to me
See the man with the lonely eyes
Take his hand, you’ll be surprised

Give a little bit
Give a little bit of your love to me
I’ll give a little bit of my life for you
Now’s the time that we need to share
So find yourself, we’re on our way back home

Going home
Don’t you need to feel at home
Oh yeah, we gotta sing

Santana – I’m Winning

This is a well-crafted song written by Russ Ballard and performed by Santana. I’m Winning didn’t have a Latin style like many of his seventies songs…it was more pop/rock and very catchy. It peaked at #17 on the Billboard 100 in 1981. Scottish vocalist Alex Ligertwood sang this song after Greg Walker left the band a little earlier.

It was released on the Zebop! album, a fascinating transitional LP that pushed Santana into the ’80s without completely abandoning the old mojo, “Winning” is anchored by one of the best vocal performances in the band’s catalog. His voice doesn’t just carry the tune; it owns it. He’s not just singing about triumph; he sounds like a man who’s been through the ringer and is finally exhaling.

Musically, this is a curious beast. Carlos’s guitar tone cuts through like sunlight through smoke. He doesn’t showboat, doesn’t shred, he sings with his strings, giving the track an emotional lift that Ballard’s original lacked.

 Ligertwood also sang on the hit Hold On the next year.

I’m Winning

One day I was on the ground
When I needed a hand
Then it couldn’t be found
I was so far down that I couldn’t get up
You know and one day I was one of life’s losers
Even my friends were my accusers
In my head I lost before I begun
I had a dream but it turned to dust
And what I thought was love
That must have been lust
I was living in style
When the walls fell in
And when I played my hand
I looked like a joker
Turn around fate must have woke her
Cause lady luck she was waiting outside the door
I’m winning
I’m winning
I’m winning
I’m winning and I don’t intend on losing again
Too bad it belonged to me
It was the wrong time and not meant to be
It took a long time and I’m new born now
I can see the day that I bleed for
If it’s agreed that there’s a need
To play the game and to win again

Chicago – Saturday in the Park

I’ve always liked early Chicago when Terry Kath was part of the band. Love the intro to this song and it takes me back to when I first heard the song. Saturday in the Park peaked at #3 in the Billboard 100 and #2 in Canada. Robert Lamm who wrote the song openly admits he based the melody on The Beatles “You Won’t See Me.”

Robert Lamm on Saturday in the Park

“Saturday in the Park is a prime example of how I take from what I experience in the world. It was written as I was looking at footage from a film I shot in Central Park, over a couple of years, back in the early ‘70s. I shot this film and somewhere down the line I edited it into some kind of a narrative, and as I watched the film I jotted down some ideas based on what I was seeing and had experienced. And it was really kind of that peace and love thing that happened in Central Park and in many parks all over the world, perhaps on a Saturday, where people just relax and enjoy each other’s presence, and the activities we observe and the feelings we get from feeling a part of a day like that.”

From Songfacts.

Chicago’s main songwriter, Robert Lamm, wrote this after a particularly exhilarating 4th of July spent in New York’s Central Park, where there were steel drum players, singers, dancers and jugglers. Lamm and Peter Cetera sang lead on the track.

like most Chicago singles, this didn’t chart in the UK. In America, however, it was their biggest chart hit to that point and also their first gold single, which at the time meant selling more than a million copies (“25 Or 6 To 4” somehow was never certified gold).

This song contains some of the most famous nonsense singing in rock: after Robert Lamm sings the line, “Singing Italian songs,” he sings some made up words approximating the Italian language.

 

Saturday In the Park

Saturday in the park, 
I think it was the Fourth of July
Saturday in the park, 
I think it was the Fourth of July

People dancing, people laughing
A man selling ice cream
Singing Italian songs
Everybody is another
Can you dig it (yes, I can) 
And I’ve been waiting such a long time
For Saturday

Another day in the park
I think it was the Fourth of July
Another day in the park
I think it was the Fourth of July

People talking, really smiling
A man playing guitar
And singing for us all
Will you help him change the world
Can you dig it (yes, I can)
And I’ve been waiting such a long time
For today

Slow motion riders fly the colors of the day
A bronze man still can tell stories his own way
Listen children all is not lost, all is not lost, oh no, no

Funny days in the park
Every day’s the Fourth of July
Funny days in the park
Every day’s the Fourth of July

People reaching, people touching
A real celebration
Waiting for us all
If we want it, really want it
Can you dig it (yes, I can)
And I’ve been waiting such a long time
For the day, yeah yeah

Hoo hoo oh
Hmm hmmm
Hmm hmmm

The Ice Cream Man?

I grew up in a rural area… there was no ice cream man traveling on our dirt road.

I would go visit my grandmother in Nashville on weekends and some weekdays. She lived in the suburbs so we were surrounded by houses and pavement.

I remember the sound and excitement. That sound of the Ice Cream truck coming when I was a kid. I didn’t have anything like that at home. If I was inside my grandmother’s house…which was rare, I could hear that bell and that tune playing no matter what I was doing. Old McDonald or some song like that.

I would bum a quarter off of my grandmother with promises to do anything.

When I grew older and was a teenager and no longer cared about that I started to notice something strange about the new ice cream guy. He drove by ringing the bell to the tune of “Sympathy for the Devil” and 19 and 20-year-olds would stop him down the street… I don’t think a quarter would have bought what he was selling anymore.

I saw him a few more times pass by…ringing the bell to Jumpin’ Jack Flash…a true Stones fan… and then I never saw him again…He was selling a different kind of treat. So Cheech and Chong weren’t that far off…I heard a little later the police didn’t approve of his inventory.

I’m not a big Van Halen fan…but this one I like.

 

 

 

Slip ‘n Slide

These were fun in the summer. A piece of plastic with a garden hose attached and voilà… a wet fun slide. I would slide down with reckless abandonment until…until I would slide over a sharp rock that was poking through the yellow plastic…then I would slip ‘n slide to first aid but it was fun. It was a great way to spend a summer day and I wouldn’t trade a minute of fun on it for anything.

Slip ‘n Slide was invented by Robert Carrier. Wham-O manufactured it in 1961, the Slip ‘n Slide is still hugely popular today.

Carrier originally sewed 50 foot of Naugahyde and brought it home for his kid to play on and all the kids in the neighborhood came by to slide down the Naugahyde material that he hosed down. He stitched a long tube along one side, sewn shut at one end, with spaces between the stitching so that when you attached the hose, the water pressure would build up and water would squirt out those openings and lubricate the surface of the material.

Wham-O traded the Naugahyde for more cost-efficient plastic (still used today), shortened the length from 50 to 25 feet and took the toy to market in 1961. It was an immediate success: 300,000 were sold within the first six months, and the total reached more than 30 million by its 50th anniversary.

This was one of my favorite toys in my childhood.

David and David – Welcome to the Boomtown

I’ve always liked the lyrics to this song and the overall sound of it. I liked all of the singles released off of their one and only album Boomtown. Welcome to the Boomtown, It Aint So Easy, and Swallowed by the Cracks. I was really looking forward to the follow-up album which never came.

Welcome to the Boomtown peaked at #37 in the Billboard 100 in 1986. Per Wikipedia, the two are planning to make a follow-up album. Over 30 years later…but better late than never.

Welcome to The Boomtown

Miss Christina drives a .944
satisfaction oozes from her pores
she keeps rings on her fingers
marble on the floor
cocaine in her dresser
bars on her doors
she keeps her back against the wall
she keeps her back against the wall
so I say
I say welcome
welcome to the boomtown
pick a habit
we got plenty to go around
welcome to the boomtown
and all that money makes such a succulent sound
welcome to the boomtown

Handsome Kevin got a little off track
took a year off of college
and he never went back
now he smokes much too much
he’s got a permanent hack
deals dope out of Denny’s
keeps a table in the back
he always listens to the ground
always listens to the ground
so I say
I say welcome to the boomtown
pick a habit we got plenty to go around
welcome to the boomtown
and all that money makes such a succulent sound
welcome to the boomtown

Well the ambulance arrived too late
I guess she didn’t want to wait….

Welcome to the boomtown

Zombies – She’s Not There

The Zombies were a bands band. They were very talented musicians who had the respect of other bands. The song peaked at #1 in the Billboard 100, #2 in Canada, and #12 in the Uk in 1964. They sounded like no other band at the time with a jazz/pop feel.

From Songfacts.

The group signed to Decca Records, and their keyboard player Rod Argent came up with this song for the session. It tells the story of an alluring woman who won’t be tied down to one man – the singer wants to tell us all about her, but he can only use words since she’s not there.

This was The Zombies first single. The band also recorded a cover of Gershwin’s “Summertime” for their first album, which was considered for the band’s first single, but “She’s Not There” got the nod. Boosted by radio play on New York powerhouse WINS, the song became a hit in the US.

 

She’s Not There
Well, no one told me about her
The way she lied
Well, no one told me about her
How many people cried

But it’s too late to say you’re sorry
How would I know? Why should I care?
Please don’t bother trying to find her
She’s not there

Well, let me tell you ’bout the way she looked
The way she acts and the color of her hair
Her voice was soft and cool
Her eyes were clear and bright
But she’s not there

Well, no one told me about her
What could I do?
Well, no one told me about her
Though they all knew

But it’s too late to say you’re sorry
How would I know? Why should I care?
Please don’t bother trying to find her
She’s not there

Well, let me tell you ’bout the way she looked
The way she acts and the color of her hair
Her voice was soft and cool
Her eyes were clear and bright
But she’s not there

But it’s too late to say you’re sorry
How would I know? Why should I care?
Please don’t bother trying to find her
She’s not there

Well, let me tell you about the way she looked
The way she acts and the color of her hair
Her voice was soft and cool
Her eyes were clear and bright
But she’s not there

Clackers

Clackers or… death on a string came out in the 1960s. They were also called Ker-Bangers, Klackers, Click-Clacks, Klik Klaks, Klappers, and Zonkers.

I remember a kid giving me his Clackers. The object I guess was swinging them up and down until they hit each other and made a “clack” sound. The sound I got the most was a thud sound with plastic hitting my skin. They were also known to shatter and the pieces fly in all different directions.

They were similar to Bolas…a weapon used by cowboys to throw at cattle or game to wrap around their legs…sometimes breaking them. Yep…lets redesign this and give it to kids.

I never minded somewhat dangerous toys but I didn’t get too much pleasure out of these.

The toy was recalled in 1985

https://www.cpsc.gov/Recalls/1985/dangerous-toys-seized-by-us-marshal-in-phoenix

 

ELO – Telephone Line

I could pick about any ELO song and do fine. Jeff Lynne is one of the best pop/rock songwriters. In my opinion, he can write super catchy songs without being sugary. Telephone Line peaked at #8 in the Billboard 100, #7 in the UK and #1 in Canada in 1977.

Lynne once said that ELO will “Pick up where ‘I Am the Walrus’ left off.”

http://www.jefflynnesongs.com/telephoneline/

Telephone Line was originally recorded at Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany during July of 1976. This recording was for the backing track only. The orchestra was recorded later at De Lane Lea Studios, Wembley, England. Just before release, other minor edits (including the muted telephone intro) were done at Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles, California, USA. The early working title was Bad Salad Telephone (a play on the term “sad ballad”), so it appears that the telephone theme was an early concept for the song.

Telephone Effects: The telephone intro for the song has drawn a lot of attention over the years. There are two notable things about it. First, the ringback tone heard (as one would hear when waiting for the line to pick up) is a North American ringback tone which is quite distinctive from that heard in the U.K. at the time. The band was having much greater success in America at the time and this inspired them to use the North American sound rather than the British sound. To get the sound just right, the band called to an office in America in when they knew no one would answer. It was likely to have been the Jet Records office in California because the time zones from England or Germany to America would have likely meant the offices were closed when the call was made. The band did not simply record the tone and insert that into the record as has been stated in some interviews, but rather they studied the sounds and then recreated them on synthesizer. If one listens closely, they are clearly not a match.

The other interesting bit about the intro is the muted, mono telephone sound, as if the listener is listening through the telephone to the song’s intro. This was a very late addition to the song. The recording was completed and Jeff was bringing the tapes from England to California when he got the idea to add the effect to the song. So it was in Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles that engineers Duane Scott and Kevin Gray were instructed to manually add the effect to the completed stereo master. The song plays normally until the very first vocal line of the first verse when the mono, listening-on-the-telephone effect cuts in. This continues, along with the ringback tone, until the “lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely nights” line when the full stereo version of the song is slowly phased in and the ringback stops. In addition, the ringback tone is again heard mid-song, in the short bridge following the first chorus and before the third verse. In the alternate vocal version heard on the 2007 A New World Record remaster, which has a non-fading end, the ringback tone is heard yet again as the last notes of the song are waning.

Telephone Line

Hello. How are you?
Have you been alright through all those lonely lonely lonely lonely lonely nights?
That’s what I’d say.
I’d tell you everything, if you’d pick up that telephone.

Hey. How you feeling?
Are you still the same?
Don’t you realize the things we did we did were all for real? Not a dream.
I just can’t believe they’ve all faded out of view.

Blue days, black nights

I look into the sky
The love you need ain’t gonna see you through.
And I wonder why
The little things you planned ain’t coming true.

Telephone line, give me some time, I’m living in twilight
Telephone line, give me some time, I’m living in twilight

O.K. So, no one’s answering,
Well can’t you just let it ring a little longer longer longer
I’ll just sit tight, through the shadows of the night
Let it ring for evermore.

Blue days, black nights

I look into the sky
The love you need ain’t gonna see you through.
And I wonder why
The little things you planned ain’t coming true.

Telephone line, give me some time, I’m living in twilight
Telephone line, give me some time, I’m living in twilight

Telephone line, give me some time, I’m living in twilight
Telephone line, give me some time, I’m living in twilight

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jonathan Edwards – Sunshine

Always loved this song. Edwards sings this song like he means every syllable. This song was written by Edwards and peaked at #4 in the Billboard 100. Sunshine was off of Jonathan’s self-titled debut album in 1971. This would be Edwards only top forty hit.

A song that fit the times and the counterculture perfectly with a Us vs Them mentality.

From Songfacts.

Jonathan explained

“I just went, ‘How much does it cost? I’ll buy it.’ I was talking about freedom and talking about authority, my constant questioning of authority. ‘How much does it cost? I’ll buy it? Time is all we’ve lost. I’ll try it. He can’t even run his own life, I’ll be damned if he’ll run mine.’ That just came out as I was playing the song for these people.”

When he performs live, Edwards usually ends the first of his two sets with this song. “I often say, and it’s true, that if I had never done another song in my life, I’ll be happy to have come and gone with that,” he told us. “It was an anthem to many people and it helped a lot of people through Vietnam. It helped a lot of people through the drug culture of the last part of the ’60s and the early ’70s. It helped a lot of people cope with a lot of things that were going on during those tumultuous years. And I feel very proud to have done that and very happy with my contribution to our culture.”

Edwards performed this song at the Mayday protests on May 2, 1971. With the slogan, “If the government will not stop the war, we will stop the government,” the demonstration was organized by a group called the Mayday Tribe, with the goal of shutting down the government by blocking off key areas in Washington, DC. When the protests started on May 1, the government had thousands of troops ready and made mass arrests, which carried into the next day when Edwards played at the Washington Monument. “The sun was coming up and the National Guard was arresting people for protesting, for being on the grounds of the Washington Monument,” he recalled. “It was my turn to play and I just started playing that song. We got to the end and my bass player and I looked at each other and we went, ‘Let’s just start it over again.’ So we just kept playing that song. Because there’s no better song for the soundtrack of that movie. It had just come out. Some people had heard it, some hadn’t, but everyone heard it that morning, including the National Guard.”

 

Sunshine

Sunshine go away today, I don’t feel much like dancing
Some man’s come he’s trying to run my life, don’t know what he’s asking
When he tells me I better get in line, can’t hear what he’s saying
When I grow up, I’m gonna make him mine, these ain’t dues I been paying

How much does it cost? 
I’ll buy it! 
The time is all we’ve lost
I’ll try it!
He can’t even run his own life, 
I’ll be damned if he’ll run mine–sunshine

Sunshine, go away today, I don’t feel much like dancing
Some man’s come he’s trying to run my life, don’t know what he’s asking
Working starts to make me wonder where fruits of what I do are going
When he says in love and war all is fair, he’s got cards he ain’t showing

How much does it cost? 
I’ll buy it! 
The time is all we’ve lost–I’ll try it!
He can’t even run his own life, 
I’ll be damned if he’ll run mine–sunshine

Sunshine, come on back another day, 
I promise you I’ll be singing
This old world, she’s gonna turn around, 
brand new bells will be ringing

The Walkman

In July of 1979, the Sony Walkman was released to the public. You had portable music anywhere you went. It cost $150 ($546.21 in today’s money).

The 1980s was the Walkman’s decade. Cassettes started to outsell albums and this device was one of the reasons. By 1986 the word “Walkman” had entered the Oxford English Dictionary. Its launch coincided with the birth of the aerobics craze, and millions used the Walkman to make their workouts more entertaining.

Between 1987 and 1997 — the height of the Walkman’s popularity — the number of people who said they walked for exercise increased by 30 percent.

Sony continued to roll out variations on its theme, adding such features as AM/FM receivers, bass boost, and auto-reverse. Sony even made a solar-powered Walkman, water-resistant Sport Walkmans and even devices with two cassette drives. With the introduction of compact discs in 1982, the cassette format began to go the way of the dinosaur.

Sony was fairly quick to jump to new formats: it introduced the D-50 portable CD player a year after the first compact discs were sold, and later rolled out MiniDisc and MP3 players under the Walkman brand.

It caught on with the public in a big way. Today with iPods, iPhones and other devices we take it for granted are descendants from the 1979 Walkman.

 

https://www.theverge.com/2014/7/1/5861062/sony-walkman-at-35

 

B.W. Stevenson – My Maria

It’s a catchy song with a country slant that was a big hit in 1973. The song was written by Stevenson and Daniel Moore. Daniel Moore wrote the song “Shambala” that Stevenson recorded but it wasn’t a hit until Three Dog Night covered it. This song peaked at #9 in the Billboard 100 and #7 in Canada.

The country duo Brooks and Dunn took the My Maria to #1 in the Country Charts in 1996.

From Songfacts.

In February 1973, Stevenson released the song “Shambala,” which was written by the composer Daniel Moore. Two weeks later, Three Dog Night released their version of the song, which became the much bigger hit, charting at US #3 while Stevenson’s version stalled at #66. Stevenson and Moore then got together and re-wrote “Shambala” as “My Maria,” changing the lyrics so the song became an ode to a beautiful woman. The ploy worked, and Stevenson had by far his biggest hit – his next closest chart entry was “The River Of Love” at #53, also written by Moore.

“Shambala” was often credited as being written by Stevenson. Moore told us: “My co-writer on ‘My Maria,’ B.W. Stevenson and I got together in 1987 and I busted him for taking credit for writing ‘Shambala.’ He had this big grin on his face and said, ‘I never said that I wrote it.’ Then his grin got bigger and he said, ‘But I also never said that I didn’t write it.’ Poor guy died the next year from a staph infection after a heart valve operation in Nashville. The operation went fine, but 3 days later he got the staph infection and it killed him. So much for the hospitals in Nashville.

I probably would never have finished ‘My Maria’ without B.W.’s assistance. I had been working on the song for two years at the point I showed it to him. Of course, he wrote the rest of the lyrics in about 15 minutes. Bless his heart.”

B.W. Stevenson (B.W. = “Buck Wheat”) was a singer/songwriter from Dallas, Texas who died in 1988 at age 38. “My Maria,” featuring Larry Carlton on guitar, was by far his best-known song. It was a #1 hit on the Adult Contemporary chart.

A 1996 cover version by Brooks & Dunn was a huge Country hit, going to #1 and being named by Billboard as the Country Song of the Year. Their version also made #79 on the Hot 100.

My Maria

My Maria don’t you know I’ve come a long, long way
I been longin’ to see her
When she’s around she takes my blues away
Sweet Maria the sunlight surely hurts my eyes
I’m a lonely dreamer on a highway in the skies

Maria, Maria I love you

My Maria there were some blue and sorrow times
Just my thoughts about you bring back my piece of mind
Gypsy lady you’re a miracle work for me
You set my soul free like a ship sailing on the sea
She is the sunlight when skies are grey
She treats me so right lady take me away

My Maria
Maria I love you
My Maria
Maria I love you

My Maria

Johnny Nash – I Can See Clearly Now

One of the best feel-good songs of all time. The reggae-influenced I Can See Clearly Now by Johnny Nash. The song peaked at #1 in the Billboard 100, #1 in Canada and #5 in the UK in 1972. The song was written by Johnny Nash and a hit again for Jimmy Cliff in 1993.

It’s one of the first songs I remember.

From Songfacts.

Johnny Nash is a Texas singer/songwriter who recorded reggae-influenced music. In 1967 he went to Jamaica and recorded his song “Hold Me Tight” and a cover of Sam Cooke’s “Cupid” with a local rhythm section. Both songs became hits in Jamaica, and over the next two years also charted in England and the United States. By 1972, “Cecilia” and “Mother And Child Reunion” found some success in the States incorporating reggae rhythms, and Nash followed that trend with “I Can See Clearly Now.”

Nash had legitimate reggae credentials: Bob Marley (before he became crazy famous) was an assistant producer and session player on the album, and also wrote three of the songs, including “Stir It Up,” which became Nash’s next – and final – hit.

A cover version by Jimmy Cliff (for a time, a bigger reggae star than Bob Marley) went to #18 in the US in 1994. His version was used in the John Candy movie Cool Runnings, about the Jamaican bobsled team.

I Can See Clearly Now

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

I think I can make it now, the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is the rainbow I’ve been prayin’ for
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

Look all around, there’s nothin’ but blue skies
Look straight ahead, nothin’ but blue skies

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

Badfinger – Baby Blue

Baby Blue never gets old to me…it is the perfect powerpop song. It has the right combination of crunch and pop with an irresistible guitar riff. I love the way they used the song in Breaking Bad that fit the scene perfectly. The song peaked at #14 in the Billboard 100 in 1972. The “Dixie” in the song was Pete Ham’s ex-girlfriend, Dixie Armstrong.

peteham&babyblue

Dixie Armstrong and Pete Ham…I got this picture from http://soref.tv/the-true-story-behind-badfingers-baby-blue/

The song came off of the album “Straight Up” that also contained the hit “Day After Day” and it is considered by many their best album. I’m happy that Breaking Bad showcased this song so that another generation knows the song and hopefully that will lead more to learn about Badfinger.

Baby Blue

Guess I got what I deserved
Kept you waiting there too long, my love
All that time without a word
Didn’t know you’d think that I’d forget or I’d regret
The special love I had for you, my baby blue

All the days became so long
Did you really think, I’d do you wrong?
Dixie, when I let you go
Thought you’d realize that I would know
I would show the special love I have for you, my baby blue

What can I do, what can I say
Except I want you by my side
How can I show you, show me the way
Don’t you know the times I’ve tried?

guitar solo

Guess that’s all I have to say
Except the feeling just grows stronger every day
Just one thing before I go
Take good care, baby, let me know, let it grow
The special love you have for me, my Dixie, dear.