♫ The Finer Things ♫

Posted on October 29, 2023 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, music, music history

Thanks once again to Clive for suggesting this one! Clive and Keith have bailed me out several times in the past week when my head has been elsewhere – I owe you guys!

In this Steve Winwood (seems like I’ve played him a lot this week, doesn’t it?) song, “finer things” doesn’t refer to diamonds, Ferraris and quarter-million dollar RVs, but rather to the small pleasures in life that are good for the soul – like laughter, friendship, a sunny day, a good book.

Like the others I’ve played this week, Winwood co-wrote this song with Will Jennings. Said Jennings in an interview with SongFacts …

“That came out of being in England, hanging out, staying up all night in London, and partying and everything else. ‘The Finer Things’ is sort of expressive of all that running around: ‘I’ve been sad and I’ve walked bitter streets alone. But come morning there’s a good wind to blow me home.’ Then it’s philosophical: ‘Time is a river rolling into nowhere. I will live while I can, I will have my ever after.'”

There isn’t a lot of background trivia for this song, and it seems to have charted only in the U.S. where it reached #8.

The Finer Things

Steve Winwood

While there is time
Let’s go out and feel everything
If you hold me
I will let you into my dreams
For time is a river rolling into nowhere
We must live while we can
And we’ll drink our cup of laughter

The finer things keep shining through
The way my soul gets lost in you
The finer things I feel in me
The golden dance life could be

I’ve been sad
And have walked bitter streets alone
And come morning
There’s a good wind to blow me home
So time be a river rolling into nowhere
I will live while I can
I will have my ever after

The finer things keep shining through
The way my soul gets lost in you
The finer things I feel in me
The golden dance life could be

We go so fast, why don’t we make it last
Life is glowing inside you and me
Please take my hand, right here where I stand
Won’t you come out and dance with me, oh
Come see

And lovers try
‘Til they get the best of the night
And come morning
They are tangled up in the light
So time be a river rolling into nowhere
And they love while they can
And they think about the night so sweet

The finer things keep shining through
The way my soul gets lost in you
The finer things I feel in me
The golden dance life could be

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Steve Winwood / Will Jennings

The Finer Things lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Universal Music Publishing Group

♫ Back In The High Life Again ♫

Posted on October 27, 2023 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, music, music history

Being in something of a funk from the current political and global situation, I was lacking any brilliant ideas for a song tonight, I thumbed back through my notes of suggestions you guys occasionally give me and came up with this one from Clive. Thank you, my friend, for rescuing me once again! I begin to wonder if Filosofa’s music posts are about to come to an end, as lately I’ve been having trouble with YouTube … sometimes they will let me play a video, other times they tell me I must disable my adblocker, which I absolutely refuse to do. Anybody else having this problem?

This song is another joint effort between Steve Winwood (music) and Will Jennings (lyrics). Jennings talks a bit about how the song came together …

“I had ‘Back in the High Life Again’ in this book that I carry with me of titles. I pulled that out and I suddenly found the rest of the song, and I wrote that in about 30 minutes, and left it with Steve to put a melody to. So this is in ’84. And then I went back to California, and it was a year, I guess, before he went in the studio, sometime in ’85. I called one day and talked to Russ Titelman who was producing the album. They were doing it in New York. I asked him how it was going, and he said, ‘Oh it’s going great.’ He said ‘Higher Love’ came out great and ‘The Finer Things.’ I asked him how ‘Back In The High Life’ would come out. There was this little pause, and he said, ‘Steve hasn’t shown me that song.’

So turns out that Steve had not written the music to it yet, and he at that time was going through a divorce. And because of the divorce, his wife got everything in the house, this big house in England. So he came up from London and went out to this house, which he still lives in and he had for years before he was married, and everything was gone, except there was a mandolin over in the corner of the living room. It was winter and it was dreary. He went over and picked up the mandolin, and he already had the words in his head, and that’s when he wrote the melody. He went back and not only cut a big hit which still is played so much today, but it was the title track of the album. And if I hadn’t asked about it, it would have just gone by, so that’s one that was saved at the last minute.”

That’s a mandolin playing throughout the song. Winwood can play just about any instrument, so unlike, say, Rod Stewart, if he wanted mandolin on a song he could just play it himself instead of calling in a session musician. On this track, he also played synthesizer, piano, and Moog bass, and did the drum programming, which augmented live drumming by John Robinson. I had no idea but was pleased to learn that one of my all-time favourites, James Taylor, did the backing vocals and can be heard at the end singing the line “back in the high life.”

The song charted at #13 in the U.S., #24 in Canada, and only reached #53 in the UK.

Back In The High Life Again

Steve Winwood

It used to seem to me that my life ran on too fast
And I had to take it slowly just to make the good parts last
But when you’re born to run it’s so hard to just slow down
So don’t be surprised to see me back in that bright part of town

I’ll be back in the high life again
All the doors I closed one time will open up again
I’ll be back in the high life again
All the eyes that watched me once will smile and take me in

And I’ll drink and dance with one hand free
Let the world back into me and on I’ll be a sight to see
Back in the high life again

You used to be the best to make life be life to me
And I hope that you’re still out there and you’re like you used to be
We’ll have ourselves a time
And we’ll dance ’til the morning sun
And we’ll let the good times come in
And we won’t stop ’til we’re done

We’ll be back in the high life again
All the doors I closed one time will open up again
We’ll be back in the high life again
All the eyes that watched us once will smile and take us in
And we’ll drink and dance with one hand free
And have the world so easily and oh we’ll be a sight to see
Back in the high life again

High life

High life
Back in the high life again
We’ll be back in the high life again
All the doors I closed one time will open up again
We’ll be back in the high life again
All the eyes that watched us once will smile and take us in
And we’ll drink and dance with one hand free
And have the world so easily and oh we’ll be a sight to see
Back in the high life again

High life
Back in the high life
Oh, we’ll be back

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Steve Winwood / Will Jennings

Back in the High Life Again lyrics © Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd., Universal Music Publishing Group

♫ Higher Love ♫

Posted on October 23, 2023 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, music, music history, Political commentary

Yesterday I played While You See A Chance by Steve Winwood, and in the comments, Pete mentioned this one which, naturally, stuck in my head. Now, I was debating between a couple of Bob Seger songs, after a mention of one in one of my Jolly Monday memes this morning, but since I was still undecided by the time I read Pete’s comment, I decided to redux this one and save Mr. Seger’s voice for tomorrow! I last played this one just five days after the 2020 election here in the U.S. when Joe Biden had been declared the winner and the future looked … brighter. Well, while that brighter vision may not have materialized, I still applaud the election of Biden/Harris …

The inspiration for tonight’s song comes from Joe Biden & Kamala Harris’ victory speech earlier tonight from Wilmington, Delaware, where they played this after giving their speeches. It seemed as good as any to celebrate what I see as a chance to restore unity, sanity and compassion to this nation.

Released in 1986 by Steve Winwood, Higher Love was written by Winwood and Will Jennings and produced by Russ Titelman and Winwood. The female vocals on the song were performed by Chaka Khan, who also appeared in the promotional music video.

This was Winwood’s first Billboard Hot 100 number-one song, topping the chart for one week. The song earned two Grammy Awards, for Record of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. It also peaked at number 13 in the United Kingdom, Winwood’s highest charting solo entry there, and reached number one in Canada for a week.

Whitney Houston covered the song in 1990, and in June 2019 Norwegian DJ Kygo reworked Houston’s cover into a tropical house track and it was released as a single worldwide. On August 21, 2019, their version hit number one on Billboard magazine’s Dance Club Songs chart, making it Houston’s highest-charting posthumous release to date, and hit #2 in the Uk, even better than Winwood’s.

I like both the Winwood version and the Whitney Houston/Kygo one, so I thought I’d just play both and let you pick one or listen to both.

Higher Love
Steve Winwood; Whitney Houston, Kygo

Think about it, there must be a higher love
Down in the heart or hidden in the stars above
Without it, life is wasted time
Look inside your heart, and I’ll look inside mine

Things look so bad everywhere
In this whole world, what is fair?
We walk the line and try to see
Fallin’ behind in what could be, oh

Bring me a higher love
Bring me a higher love, oh
Bring me a higher love
Where’s that higher love I keep thinking of?

That love, that love
Bring me higher love, love
That love, that love
Bring me higher love, oh
That love, that love
Bring me higher love, love
That love, that love
Bring me a higher love

Worlds are turnin’, and we’re just hanging on
Facing our fear, and standin’ out there alone
A yearning, yeah, and it’s real to me
There must be someone who’s feeling for me

Things look so bad everywhere
In this whole world, what is fair?
We walk the line and try to see
Fallin’ behind in what could be, oh

Bring me a higher love (oh my Lord)
Bring me a higher love, oh (oh)
Bring me a higher love (my Lord)
It’s that higher love I keep thinking of

That love, that love
Bring me higher love, love
That love, that love
Bring me higher love, oh
That love, that love
Bring me higher love, love
That love, that love
Bring me a higher love

oh, bring me love
(Bring me a higher love, oh) we need a higher love
(Bring me a higher love) bring me, bring me, yeah
A higher love I keep thinking of, oh

That love, that love (bring me a higher love)
Bring me higher love, love
That love, that love (bring me a higher love)
Bring me higher love, oh
That love, that love (bring me a higher love)
Bring me higher love, love
A higher love I keep thinking of

Bring me a higher love (that love, that love)
(Bring me higher love, love)
Bring me a higher love (that love, that love)
(Bring me higher love) oh

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Steve Winwood / Will Jennings
Higher Love lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.

♫ While You See A Chance ♫

Posted on October 22, 2023 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, music, music history

I was looking back through my stacks of notes to find one of the songs Clive has recommended in the past, preferably one I hadn’t already played, since my music posts have been a disappointment to Clive & Pete the last few days, and I came across this one by Steve Winwood. I didn’t recognize the title, but I pulled it up on YouTube and immediately recognized the tune as one I’ve always loved! Win/win! And as a bonus for me, I learned something new! Winwood co-wrote this with Will Jennings and what I did not know is how many artists Jennings has written songs for, including Barry Manilow, B.B. King, Joe Cocker and others!

According to SongFacts …

Jennings is renowned for his ability to write meaningful lyrics for talented musicians. He and Winwood spent a lot of time together, not just working, but hanging out and getting to know each other. Says Jennings, “It’s like writing… if you’re writing a play, you’re writing for a particular persona, a particular character, and you try to feel as deeply inside them as you can – where are they coming from and what they’ve been through. It’s the same with Steve, ‘While You See A Chance,’ because he was coming out of a whole period with Spencer Davis and Traffic, and then where else do you go? I was up there at his place in rural England, and I was in his life so to speak, and trying to see through his eyes as well as mine. And that’s what all those things were about, all the songs we wrote.”

Jennings explains the line, “While you see a chance take it, find romance, fake it”:

“Well the next line explains it: ‘Because it’s all on you.’ There’s an old English expression called “Fake it till you make it.” If you don’t have romance in your life, meaning in the broader sense, really, something to make life interesting, just imagine it until it’s there.”

This became Winwood’s first Top 40 hit as a solo artist. In 1986 he hit #1 in the US with “Higher Love,” also with a lyric by Jennings.

During production, Winwood accidentally erased the drum track from part of the song as he prepared to record a vocal. After months of trying to patch up the damage, he left the drums off the erased part and restructured the song.

This song charted at #3 in Canada, #7 in the U.S. and #45 in the UK.

While You See A Chance

Steve Winwood

Stand up in a clear blue morning
Until you see what can be
Alone in a cold day dawning
Are you still free? Can you be?

When some cold tomorrow finds you
When some sad old dream reminds you
How the endless road unwinds you

While you see a chance, take it
Find romance, fake it
Because it’s all on you

Don’t you know by now
No one gives you anything?
And don’t you wonder how you keep on moving?
One more day
Your way
Whoa, your way

When there’s no one left to leave you
Even you don’t quite believe you
That’s when nothing can deceive you

While you see a chance, take it
Find romance, fake it
Because it’s all on you

Stand up in a clear blue morning
Until you see what can be
Alone in a cold day dawning
Are you still free? Can you be?

And that old grey wind is blowing
And there’s nothing left worth knowing
And it’s time you should be going

While you see a chance, take it
Find romance, fake it
Because it’s all on you

While you see a chance, take it
Find romance
While you see a chance, take it
Find romance (fake it)
While you see a chance, take it
Find romance
While you see a chance, take it
Find romance

While you see a chance, take it
Find romance (oh, fake it, baby)
While you see a chance, take it
Find romance (oh)

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Steve Winwood

♫ Higher Love ♫

Posted on November 8, 2020 by jilldennison under music