CHICAGO - “If You Leave Me Now”
As I gradually learned more about music history it became apparent that there were a bunch of American bands who had enjoyed long careers in the 70s but who were close to invisible here. It seems to me that Britain has never really had an equivalent to the rock radio formats on which Chicago, among others, built a fanbase: individual DJs were left to promote adult-oriented and classic rock, which didn’t give dues-paying rock bands the space they had to build large audiences back home. Of course, I didn’t listen to radio in the 70s, so I’m happy to be corrected on this.Anyway the upshot is that the career of Chicago seemed (and seems) bizarre to me: literally dozens of albums, most of them doubles (or more!), reduced as far as I was concerned to a single soppy hit which I knew better from karaoke than from ever actually hearing the band’s version. And apparently “If You Leave Me Now” is hardly typical of the band’s work (to the extent that its success caused serious rifts). In Popular terms, though, it’s the first of a bunch of limpidly sincere records we’ll be meeting as the British public went ballad crazy.
What works in “If You Leave Me Now”? The hook, certainly - instantly memorable and (often what separates hit from flop, this) fun to imitate. As contrition, though, the track would work better if it was sparer: the opulent instrumentation means “If You Leave Me Now” sounds as much seduction as plea - which I’m sure did its sales no harm. The whole thing is glutinously enjoyable on one level, self-regarding piffle on another: that “oooh-ooh-oooh”doesn’t bring to mind a man desperate to stop his lover departing, just Peter Cetera tossing his hair and making doe-eyes at himself in a really gigantic mirror. 5
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DJ Punctum on May 17th, 2008
Waiting for Mark to come back on here in the working week so we can thrash through the UK prog/US jazz-AoR pre-punk parallels but this is slow and weightless (some might say “ploddy”) enough for Tales From Topographic Oceans any day - there’s even a touch of the Jon Anderson LEAP TO THAT MAJOR FIFTH Fosbury Flop about Cetera’s vocal - and a very long way from the days when they were talked about in the same terms as Blood, Sweat & Tears and Don Ellis’ big band as, er, The Future (did Al Kooper ever have anything to do with Chicago?).
(and also the best one of the lot from that side of the Atlantic were Toronto’s very own Lighthouse but they never made it to these shores, more’s the pity)
I’d really like to see big band jazz-rock-R&B-post-psych fusion tried again, to be honest (yes all right Jamiroquai but I need something with a lot more HUSTLE than dear old Jay), but maybe leave the Tom Jones vocal aspirations of David Clayton Thomas and similar out.
Anyway, “If You Leave Me Now”; dreary anaesthetising guff for Bouquet of Barbed Wire fans and absolutely fitting for this Valium of a Popular year - no wonder everyone needed to be waked up and kicked very loudly (”New Rose” next to this is akin to life next to death). Christ, Cetera, enough with the basset hound whining; no wonder she’s pissing off.
Also a subsequent mainstay of Simon Bates’ Our Tune NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST IN FOUR SECONDS as requested by Tracey who was going to marry Darren but the night before the wedding he was transfixed by a spear of frozen liquid waste from a passing aircraft etc. etc. Chris Morris to thread.
Kat but logged out innit on May 17th, 2008
You know how I said that ‘Save Your Kisses For Me’ segues into the ‘Dads Army’ theme? Well this segues into ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’. It’s the ‘der-dur-der-dur’ strings, innit.
Caledonianne on May 17th, 2008
Been very busy at work the last three weeks, so I have a whole corncucopia of treats to contemplate, and work backwards on.
I’m definitely with Rosie on this. I don’t think I ever did snog to this, but my God, I WANTED TO! Perfect first time in love fodder this (I wasn’t, but I thought I was, and so, so wanted to be). We loved, the swoops, the horns, the strings, the guitar. In June the following year my three friends and myself had a joint 18th/leaving school party (unsullied by any of that ghastly punk stuff, which just wasn’t on our radar and - check this Marcello - in a Knights of St Columba Hall. Eek!) and this just had to be the final smoochy dance number, leaving us all replete with warmth and happines, and sighs. If I remember rightly none of us actually had what you could call a boyfriend at the time, but no worries. This was the business!Got to dance with the object of my misplaced affections but he, being a responsible chap 16 years my senior wasn’t going to allow any of that smoochy stuff. On the rare occasions I see him now, we laugh about it.
As les girls went off to our different universities, no more the Three Musketeers, this saw us on our way*, and for that reason it’s proudly my Ipod.
Well, after a belting singalong Flower of Scotland, natch!
FT's rosie on May 17th, 2008
Kat @ 27: This one does segue into something else in my head, and it’s the der-dur-der-dur strings that do it for me, but it’s JJ Cale’s Cocaine that it becomes.
will on May 17th, 2008
I know they’ve been discussed here in thorough detail and yes, I personally find the whole concept somewhat questionable, but to me this is the epitome of a Guilty Pleasure. Even though it’s a soppy ballad sung by a load of hairy Americans, I’ve always found something strangely comforting about the way the horns nestle in the intro and the way those strings hover hopefully in the verses. Worth more than a 5, I’d say.
LondonLee on May 17th, 2008
American do often tell you the time as “6 of 4″ or “20 of 8″ - I’ve lived here 15 years and it still puzzles me.
Billy Smart on May 17th, 2008
I think that this is a fine example of a very good bit (”If you leave me now/ Ooohooohoooh”/ horns come in) moored in the middle of a rather dreary song. Whenever I hear that bit I get a bit excited and then I lose interest. I remember it working well in the Lemon Jelly track, though.
What affection I have for this song is taken from the experience of watching 1976 clips on ‘Top of The Pops 2′ on a small black and white portable TV in the room of a Victorian hall of residence where a friend lived, one dark and wet Saturday evening in November 1996.
This came on. We watched, underawed.
“My mum likes this” she told me.
The song became imprinted indelibly in my mind - forever since - as “The song that Nicky’s mum likes”, no more and no less.
pink champale on May 17th, 2008
i always spend the whole record waiting (and it’s a long, if not unpleasant wait) for the bit towards the end when peter cetera unleashes his comical “oohah pretty mamma i jus gotta have yuur luvin” bit.
DJ Punctum on May 18th, 2008
Knights of St Columba hall - eek indeed!
First “punk” record played at our school disco; “Something Better Change” by the Stranglers, autumn ‘77, to which I did the Tiswas dying fly routine of which classmates still speak to this day.
Waldo on May 18th, 2008
I’m scuttling off for a few days of drying out and playing with baby mice and whatever else. My absence will cover Lady Jane Grey’s reign, I see. I fully expect the blogger formally known as Marcello to have completed his detention imposed by Rosie and Doctor Mod by then. Back at my school, a period of detention was never a punishment, merely the most effective way a teacher (”progressive” all) had of preventing a “pupil” from being brutally slain.
vinylscot on May 18th, 2008
I’m pleasantly surprised to see that reactions to this seem to be on the whole rather positive.
As with Waldo, in comment #16, I too heard this song early, and claimed it for myself, not really thinking it would be a UK no1 - It just didn’t sound like the sort of thing Brits would buy. It was only later that it became apparent it had been just a blueprint for precisely what the Brits would buy from an American (usually) AOR band.
I think it was the rather plaintive vocal which made it so memorable - the cod-flamenco guitar was a bit different back then (but not too cheezy) and overall the production seemed tastefully restrained, again not a bad thing back in the day…
I would probably hate it if it was new now, or even just five years later, by which time we’d had all sorts of similar tosh. But at the time, it seemed new, not revolutionary (like p**k), just a wee bit different. Chicago themselves attempted a carbon copy the following year with “Baby What A Big Surprise”, but we weren’t fooled and it only hit #41.
intothefireuk - it had been released in the US in July, and in these pre-download days, it was of course quite common for a single to be released in the US several months prior to its UK release (if it was released in UK at all), and vice-versa. It was a pretty instant hit on its release over here, but you would probably have heard Gambaccini playing it pretty regularly throughout the summer. Several other DJs around that time kept one ear on the US charts, so it may have got some airplay on other shows too. If you were a chart freak, you would no doubt have been aware of it as it hit the Billboard top 30 in week ending 21st August.
#2 watch - this prevented Leo Sayer having his first #1 with “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing”
FT's Doctor Mod on May 18th, 2008
Waldo #35–
Oh no, my dear! You truly overestimate my capabilities.
FT's lonepilgrim on May 18th, 2008
i’m surprised this charted so early as whenever i hear it on the radio i think of it as an 80s hit - maybe i get it confused with peter cetera’s later solo efforts
it has a kind of four seasons feel to it, maybe because of the high, nasal voice - but this has a more blissed out feel that conjures up pictures of men in blouses and medallions with blow dried hair
while googling some of the acts who followed that trend i discovered a new musical genre - yacht rock: details here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yacht_rock
re: no. 26 and the prog/aor pre-punk thing i seem to remember that among those writers who promoted those genres in the music press there was a lot of stuff which promoted ‘the studio’ as a scene of high-tech wizardry to which lesser mortals could never aspire until they had ‘paid their dues’ - the week after mick farren wrote his ‘titanic sails at dawn’ piece in the nme, max bell wrote a reply in which he sung the praises of steely dan and little feat amongst others
punk didn’t sweep all that away for me at least - i was happy to listen to the sex pistols as well as steely dan and pink floyd
FT's DJ Punctum on May 19th, 2008
Cue Mark with Dan/Floyd as real punk heheh etc.
FT's Drucius on May 19th, 2008
Sloppy and slushy indeed. Which made it perfect for sloppy and slushy snogging.
FT's pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør on May 19th, 2008
real punk = sutherland brothers and quiver heheh etc
FT's DJ Punctum on May 19th, 2008
He should have played Silver Convention instead.
FT's Lena on May 19th, 2008
And Issac Hayes!
It could be that saying “six of four” is a bit of UK English that was taken to the US and is surviving in places - as a Californian I’ve never heard it, let alone said it.
I’m starting to think everything besides Brotherhood of Man is the real punk…
Billy Smart on May 19th, 2008
He could have played ‘Love Hangover’, too…
FT's DJ Punctum on May 19th, 2008
Fair’s fair, though - he did spare us the agony of “No Charge” and “Convoy GB.”
Even with the thirties/forties nostalgia boom, isn’t Robin Sarstedt’s “My Resistance Is Low” the weirdest of top three hits?
Ben on May 20th, 2008
There’s a truly bizarre version of this song by Brazilian singer Ive Mendes, which sounds like someone’s reprogrammed an automated call centre.
Caledonianne on May 25th, 2008
I love “My resistance is low”, just as I did when I was 17. Fabulous arrangement, and another track that keeps me cosy, dozy company on the train home on the mad nights when the Commons sits ’til nearly midnight.
Erithian on May 27th, 2008
Que? Are you saying there’s an MP hiding behind this alias?! or at least a Commons researcher?
Brian on June 2nd, 2008
There were several bands built around the same model as Chicago that were qiite big in North America. Maybe the UK has an aversion to horn sections.
I’m thinking of Blood, Sweat & Tears, Electric Flag , Tower of Power, Cold Blood , Sons of Champlin and , in their own way Sly & The Family Stone.
All these bands built around big sound and brassy , ballsy punchy , funky horn sections.
I saw Chicago live ( more than once ) and certainly early on , when they were the Chicago Transit Authourity and Terry Kath was still there they were fabulous. Probably their best piece of music is the suite ” Make Me Smile ” on their second LP, I think.
mike on June 3rd, 2008
Oh Gawd, the Tony Blackburn on-air meltdown period. (The Jacksons’ “Dreamer”! Patrick Juvet’s “Just Another Lonely Man!”) Even at his most nauseatingly chirpy, you could hear the underlying brittle desperation, which he was barely able (or indeed bothered) to conceal.
Interesting that TB got behind “If You Leave Me Now”. I remember him playing Chicago’s “I’m A Man” as a “Revived 45″. When the record finished, he commented, almost apologetically: “That was from 1970, when the heavier stuff tended to get into the charts.” (Pause, then more brightly and briskly) “Aren’t you glad it’s not still 1970?!”
I love this record. A solid 9 from me.
FT's DJ Punctum on June 3rd, 2008
Surprised R2 haven’t considered Tone for presenting POTP; he would be right at home there.
Brian on June 3rd, 2008
(and also the best one of the lot from that side of the Atlantic were Toronto’s very own Lighthouse ……)
Thanks for reminding me Marcello !Toronto had a big live R & B community in the sixties & seventies that may account for the popularity of big bands in these parts.
Might also explain why Chicago were so popular here. David Clayton Thomas also from Toronto.
For the record some of the local , blue eyed soul bands were Jon , Lee & The Checkmates, The Rougues ( i think Lighthouse Drummer , Skip Prokop , was original drummer ), Tom & Ian and The Soulset, Mandala, George Oliver . They mostly covered the US Soul Hits but had a big following and have actually become identified with the ” Toronto SOund “. Most played out of L’Cog D’or on YOnge Street and the same place was home to Ronnie Hawkins & The Hawks , who later became The Band. Special place, special time.
Andy Pandy on August 25th, 2008
Apparently to a lot of Chicago fans and certain members of the band this was the beginning of the end as they went from a “serious/albums orientated” band to one invoved in romantic pop songs. To me this and possibly “Baby What A Big Surprise” and maybe the disco-influenced album that contained “Streetplayer” (sampled and made famous by the Bucketheads “The Bomb”)were the final glimmers of class in a very worthwhile career. This single to me is pretty perfect in every way and the paucity of similar standrard stuff at No1 just goes to show how the quality of No1’s has been on an almost downward trajectory ever since the late70s/80s. And if anyone says they prefer “New Rose” to this I’d have to consider whether they actually really do like music at all.
DJ Punctum on August 26th, 2008
(a) I said it.
(b) I’m right.
(c) In common with everyone else on this planet, I don’t give a fuck what you consider. Deal with it.
Mark G on August 26th, 2008
a) Me too
b) It’s my opinion, and I also like 25 or 624 better than this
c) one bracket is better for footnotes
DJ Punctum on August 26th, 2008
I mean the guy’s actually two years younger than me and yet he comes across as a dreary old man; it’s depressing and I feel sorry for him. Ah well, DNFTT.
mike on August 26th, 2008
a) Thirded. “If You Leave Me Now” is perfectly lovely, but “New Rose” was genuinely life-changing.
b) I don’t like music; I love it!
Mark G on August 26th, 2008
Well, in our 6th form year 6 we all between us had the common room filled with the punk and new wave. When we moved up to year 7, the new 6th year brought in La belle epoch and suchlike. It did seem at the time that the times were changing back…
DJ Punctum on August 26th, 2008
In my common room day it was all Canadian hard rock - Rush, Max Webster, April Wine - and I still don’t quite get why they were so popular in my year.
Mark G on August 26th, 2008
There were a lot of black armbands when LynSkyn went down, back in the day, there.
DJ Punctum on August 26th, 2008
Pity Kid Rock didn’t slash his wrists in sympathy.