Peter Frampton “Baby I Love Your Way” live version charted

Baby I Love Your Way Peter Frampton

Writer(s): Peter Frampton (see lyrics here) Released: September 1975 First Charted: June 19, 1976 Peak: 12 US, 16 CB, 16 HR, 9 RR, 28 AC, 2 CL, 43 UK, 65 CN, 3 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.4 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 33.1 video, 82.03 streaming

Baby I Love Your Way/Free Bird Medley Will to Power

Released: August 1988 First Charted: September 10, 1988 Peak: 11 US, 11 CB, 12 RR, 2 AC, 6 UK, 11 CN, 20 AU, 9 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 0.5 US Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 23.2 video, 34.05 streaming

Baby I Love Your Way Big Mountain

Released: February 1, 1994 First Charted: February 25, 1994 Peak: 6 US, 2 CB, 2 RR, 10 AC, 2 UK, 2 CN, 4 AU (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 0.5 US, 0.2 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 4.5 video, 204.52 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: British guitarist Peter Frampton had made eight studio albums – four with Humble Pie and four more as a solo artist – before becoming a superstar with his blockbuster live album Frampton Comes Alive. As a solo artist, he never even dented the Billboard Hot 100 until the live version of “Show Me the Way” reached #6 in 1976. That opened the door for Frampton. He followed it up with a live take on “Baby I Love Your Way.” Like “Show Me the Way,” the song was featured on Frampton Comes Alive but had previously been released as a single in support of his last studio album, 1975’s Frampton. In the “romantic love ballad, Frampton is telling his girl that he loves everything about her and wants to be with her day and night.” SF Billboard described “Baby I Love Your Way” as an “easy rocker” with “an effective hook.” WK Cash Box called it “an excellent tune” that “Frampton sings with sensitivity over the soft backing.” WK Frampton’s version was bested twice on the charts. In 1988, the pop group Will to Power recorded the song as a medley with Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” and took it all the way to #1 in the United States. In 1994, the American reggae/pop band Big Mountain climbed to #6 with a cover of the song from the Reality Bites soundtrack. The song was also featured in the 2000 movie High Fidelity. John Cusack’s character hates the song until he hears Lisa Bonet sing it. Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Peter Frampton SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 7/27/2022.

Harry Chapin “Cat’s in the Cradle” hit #1

Cat’s in the Cradle Harry Chapin

Writer(s): Harry Chapin, Sandra Chapin (see lyrics here) First Charted: September 28, 1974 Peak: 11 US, 11 CB, 2 GR, 11 HR, 3 RR, 6 AC, 1 CL, 3 CN, 6 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 73.4 video, 108.16 streaming

Cat’s in the Cradle Ugly Kid Joe

Released: March 25, 1993 First Charted: February 5, 1993 Peak: 6 US, 9 CB, 6 GR, 9 RR, 3 AR, 7 UK, 11 AU, 11 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 0.5 US Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 49.0 video, 94.85 streaming

Awards (Harry Chapin): Click on award for more details. Awards (Ugly Kid Joe): Click on award for more details.

About the Song: “Harry Chapin was rock’s master storyteller. His songs were narrative prose set to music.” FB He said his songs were “stories of oridinary people and cosmic moments in their non-cosmic lives.” FB However, the lyrics for “Cat’s in the Cradle” – his best-known hit – were written by his wife Sandra. He claimed she wrote the “four minute musical guilt trip” SG “to ‘zap’ him” SG but she actually wrote it about her first husband, James Cashmore, and his difficult relationship with his father. Harry didn’t write accompanying music for the song until about a year later – after he missed the birth of his son because he was on the road. It also let him deal with his own feelings about his father, a jazz drummer, who was often on the road as well. SG “Cat’s in the Cradle” “boils all the complexities of parenthood to the question of whether or not the dad is physically or mentally present. It has a big tearjerking coda about how the adult kid doesn’t have any time to spend with his father…His new job’s a hassle! The kid’s got the flu!” SG The power of the song is how “it hits you in the gut at the right moment…and turn you into a shuddering feelings-puddle.” SG It “doesn’t have all the layers of some of other Chapin’s songs. That’s fine. It sacrifices those layers for pure throat-lump effectiveness.” SG “Chapin’s got a declarative sing-speaking style, and he slowly tweaks it as the song builds, moving deliberately from distant wonder at his kid’s birth to heavy-hearted intensity. He never overplays any of the song’s big moments. When he reaches his big tearjerking finale – ‘My boy was just like me’ – he could go for high drama. Instead, he holds back, almost murmuring that line to himself, letting the words do the work.” SG “Musically, ‘Cat’s in the Cradle’ is an assured piece of ’70s folk-rock. Those lyrics demand so much attention that it’s easy to neglect all the subtle little flourishes in the arrangement…the vaguely Eastern string-figure, the weirdly catchy electric-sitar riff, the bass that wells up at the exact right moment.” SG The hair-metal band Ugly Kid Joe covered the song in 1993 and it reached #6. While the idea sounds cringe-worthy, it actually worked pretty well, largely because the band were faithful to the song and didn’t butcher it. It ended up introducing a whole new generation to the age-old father-son guilt dynamic. Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Harry Chapin DMDB encyclopedia entry for Ugly Kid Joe FB Fred Bronson (2007). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (4th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 386. SG Stereogum (6/18/2019). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan WK Wikipedia First posted 7/25/2022; last updated 12/27/2022.

America “A Horse with No Name” hit #1

A Horse with No Name America

Writer(s): Dewey Bunnell (see lyrics here) Released: November 12, 1971 First Charted: December 18, 1971 Peak: 13 US, 13 CB, 12 GR, 13 HR, 3 AC, 1 CL. 3 UK, 11 CN, 2 AU, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US, 0.6 UK Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 18.59 video, 458.75 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Dewey Bunnell, Dan Peek, and Gerry Beckley were American kids who were sons of fathers in the Air Force based in England. They met at London’s Central High School, a school primarily for children of military families, FB and “bonded over the shimmering, heavily harmonized folk-rock that was coming out of California. When they started a band, they called themselves America because they didn’t want anyone to get the idea that they were English kids trying to sound American.” SG They released their self-titled debut in the UK in 1970. They wanted to release the ballad “I Need You” as a single, but the label was more interested in releasing a new song the band initially called “Desert Song” which they thought “would be a fun little novelty…that…was too weird to be a big success.” SG The non-album single was named “A Horse with No Name” and took off. When they released it in the U.S., the song was added to the debut album. The song is “about finding an existential epiphany after a trip through the desert.” SG Bunnell, who was 19 when he wrote it, said it was about “solitary thinking in a peaceful place.” SG He was “inspired by a homesickness for America and the desert countryside he remembered when he lived briefly at Vandenberg Air Force base” FB in California. The song “is hazy and memorable” SG despite some “real lyrical clunkers…that nobody older than 19 would’ve been able to sing with a straight face;” SG lines like “There were plants and birds and rocks and things” and “The heat was hot.” Of course the question the song has raised since the beginning is why doesn’t the protagonist name horse after nine days in the desert? Bunnell also distractingly “sounds a whole lot like Neil Young” SG with his “very distinct vocal tone, an airy high-lonesome quaver.” SG Despite that, “’A Horse With No Name’ works. There’s a warm, cloudy sense of mystery to the song. The band (and the session musicians who filled out the song) play with a real confidence. It’s full of neat production touches: murmuring bongo drums, a politely meandering bassline, a darting-hummingbird dual guitar lead that nods to flamenco without giving into it altogether. The harmonies add a mythic out-of-time quality even as they imitate what Young’s buddies Crosby, Stills & Nash were doing at the time, and the arrangement builds to a pleasant swirl.” SG Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for America FB Fred Bronson (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th edition). Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 309. SG Stereogum (2/22/2019). “The Number Ones” by Tom Breihan WK Wikipedia First posted 7/13/2022; last updated 12/6/2022.