Okay, okay … so I just played this one about 2 years ago, but it seemed to please everyone, including moi, so I’m playing it again tonight.  I’m grumpy and need something to tap my toes to!

There are hundreds, if not thousands of songs in the world of ♫♪♫ that I love, and yet some nights I find myself at a loss for one that I haven’t already played since I began posting music last July (at the suggestion of one of my first blogging buddies, Mr. Militant Negro) last July.  Exhaustion, coupled with the dark cloud over my head these days, I suppose, keeps me from immediately being able to think of another favourite of yore.  So, when somebody mentions or requests a song that I do like, I jump on it!  Tonight’s song came about just so.  David, who wasn’t all that thrilled with Michael McDonald’s I Keep Forgettin’ a few nights ago, mentioned that he likes Listen to the Music by the Doobie Brothers.  And so, when I was feeling really down tonight, considering just skipping the music post altogether as I sometimes do, I found this tune floating around in my head.  So, here we are …

The song, released in 1972,  was written by the band’s lead vocalist Tom Johnston, who also played guitar on the track. This was the Doobie Brothers’ first big hit  According to Johnston …

“It was all based around this somewhat Utopian view of the world. The idea was that music would lift man up to a higher plane, and that world leaders, if they were able to sit down on some big grassy knoll where the sun was shining and hear music – such as the type I was playing – would figure out that everybody had more in common than they had not in common, and it was certainly not worth getting in such a bad state of affairs about. Everybody in the world would therefore benefit from this point of view. Just basically that music would make everything better. And of course I’ve since kind of realized it doesn’t work that way.”

As to how he came up with it …

“I was sitting in my bedroom in San Jose. I was doing what I always do, I had been up playing guitar for hours. It was like 2 or 3 in the morning. I had the opening riff to it, and I think I figured out all of the chord changes as well. I called Teddy (producer Ted Templeman), woke him up, and played it for him over the phone, and he was less than enthusiastic. I think it was because I woke him up. But he said, ‘Well, yeah, it might be pretty good. Needs a couple of changes.’ But we didn’t ever change anything. It stayed the way it was, the way I had it. The chord changes and everything we made are the same. In the studio, the bass part was added by Tiran (Porter), drums were added by Mike (Hossack), and Pat (Simmons) came up with a couple of parts and put in that banjo at the end. And it was the second time anybody had ever used something like phasing on a record. First time was ‘The Big Hurt’ by Toni Fisher. But things like ‘Long Train Runnin’,’ I said, ‘You’re nuts. It’ll never be a single.’ And it was.”

Without further ado … this is for you, David …

Listen to the Music
The Doobie Brothers

Don’t you feel it growing, day by day
People getting ready for the news
Some are happy, some are sad
Woah, gotta let the music play

Mhm
What the people need is a way to make them smile
It ain’t so hard to do if you know how
Gotta get a message, get it on through
Oh now momma don’t you ask me why

Woah, oh listen to the music
Woah, oh listen to the music
Woah, oh listen to the music
All the time

When I know you know baby, everything I say
Meet me in the country for a day
We’ll be happy and we’ll dance
Oh, we’re gonna dance our blues away

And if I’m feeling good to you and you’re feeling good to me
There ain’t nothing we can’t do or say
Feeling good, feeling fine
Oh, baby, let the music play

Woah, oh listen to the music
Woah, oh listen to the music
Woah, oh listen to the music
All the time

Like a lazy flowing river
Surrounding castles in the sky
And the crowd is growing bigger
Listening for the happy sounds
And I got to let them fly

Woah, oh listen to the music
Woah, oh listen to the music
Woah, oh listen to the music
All the time

Woah, oh listen to the music
Woah, oh listen to the music
Woah, oh listen to the music
All the time

Woah, oh listen to the music
Woah, oh listen to the music
Woah, oh listen to the music

All the timeSongwriters: Tom Johnston
Listen to the Music lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.