♫ Music with Soul ♫

Posted on by under music, Saturday Surprise

I’m doing something just a bit different for today’s music post!  This was a Saturday Surprise post back in January of 2018, over three years ago!  Since I didn’t do a Saturday Surprise post this week, and since I’ve had some of these very songs burning through my head all day, I thought I’d redux this one with a number of great songs!  You can think of it as a Sunday Surprise post and a music post combined!

Saturday kittensWelcome, my dear friends!  Once again it is the weekend and I’m sure you all have big plans for fun things, yes?  My weekend is beyond quiet, for daughter Chris is in Kansas City, Missouri, for a band competition.  Although she is not competing this year, she and some of her bandmates have gone for the fun and experience (I think a few go just for the barbecue!) Since Miss Goose and I are both quite reclusive, we have to set our alarms for every few hours so we remember to talk to each other.  The house is eerily quiet, and it is snowing outside, so a rather peaceful weekend.  That said, I am still under the spell of mind bounce, simply cannot stay focused, so I decided to just let it bounce and share a bit of this and a bit o’ that for the Saturday Sunday Surprise.  Let us start with a nice bit of music to set the ‘Saturday Sunday mood’ …

The live clips are never of the same sound quality as the studio recordings, but I like watching these guys.  The song was written by Robert Lamm, the keyboardist and singer for Chicago, after a particularly exhilarating 4th of July spent in New York’s Central Park, where there were steel drum players, singers, dancers and jugglers.

Like most Chicago singles, this didn’t make the charts in the UK. In the U.S., 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. 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
I think it was the Fourth of July
Saturday in the park
I think it was the Fourth of July
People talking, people laughing
A man selling ice cream
Singing Italian songs
(Fake Italian lyric)
Can you dig it (yes, I can)
And I’ve been waiting such a long time
For Saturday

Another day in the park
You’d think it was the Fourth of July
Another day in the park
You’d think it was the Fourth of July
People dancing, really smiling
A man playing guitar
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
Yell 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

Chicago

Hey Keith … you do like Chicago, right?

That was fun … let’s try another …

Sam Cooke … ah, they don’t make ’em like him anymore … King of Soul.  Did you know how he died?  At only 33 years of age, Cooke was shot in the chest by Bertha Franklin,   the manager of the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles, California.  Franklin claimed that she acted in self-defense after he broke into her office residence and attacked her. Her account was immediately disputed by Cooke’s acquaintances.  It’s a long and strange story, still an unsolved mystery, but one which I will not go into, for this is supposed to be a happy post.

Now that I’m into music mode, how about one more?

One of my all-time favourites and I usually belt that one out as I mop floors on Friday, or in better weather when I walk ’round the track at the park … and I dance to this one, too!  No comments from the peanut gallery, please!  Shortly after recording Dock of the Bay, Redding was killed in a plane crash, and the song became the first posthumous number-one record on both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B charts.

Well, it seems like this post had a mind of its own and decided to make this a musical Saturday Sunday Surprise.  Have you got time for just one more?  Please?

What’s not to love about Ray Charles, eh?

Well, friends, I know you have errands to run and things to be done, so I suppose this ends our time together for this Saturday Sunday.  Thanks for joining me for a brief trip down memory lane … I had fun and I hope you did too!  Keep safe and warm … until next week …

Happy Saturday.jpg

22 thoughts on “♫ Music with Soul ♫”

  2. Yeah, this songs are also good for a fine Sunday evening! :-)) Where is the whisky, and wooohooo where is the summer feeling here? ;-( Actully around 10 degrees plus. ;-( OK, i will no longer rant. Thank you, Jill! :-)) Michael

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  3. Some great songs here. For me, though, the Chicago one isn’t among them – I rather lost interest in them after their first couple of albums. Now, 25 Or 6 To 4 was a great song 😉

    Did you know Cat Stevens covered the Sam Cooke one – he was top ten here with it.

    Otis and Ray are classics in anyone’s book 😊

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    • Heh heh … I’m thinking that is the one that didn’t do much for David, too! Y’know, I almost played 25 Or 6 To 4 a few nights ago, but had played it fairly recently, so I didn’t.

      No, I don’t think I knew that Cat Stevens had covered Sam Cooke’s song! Not surprising, I guess! I also almost played Cat’s “Peace Train” a few nights ago, but again … played it recently!

      Glad you enjoyed 75% of the music!!!

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      • Quite possibly, as we never really acquired the taste for them, apart from that dirge that made #1 some years later!

        By the time his version was released Cat wasn’t doing covers any more, so this one was a bit of a rarity.

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        • It’s odd that there are some songs that were much-loved in both our countries, and others only in either yours or mine.

          I think Cat Stevens found his groove somewhere in there and settled for message over ratings.

          Liked by 1 person

          • That is often the way, I think. Some bands and artists just don’t travel well, most of the time.

            Cat Stevens found his groove when he came back from the long break after illness, during which he wrote several albums’ worth of songs. It felt odd when he released this cover tbh, though as it was on a compilation album going back to his early days my guess was that it was recorded several years previously.

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  7. Still lots of fun, three years later, but so much talent lost uselessly far too early. Maybe today is time for a shot of Rock n Roll Heaven by the Righteous Brothers.

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