YOU’RE THE INSPIRATION

CHICAGO

SONGWRITERS: PETER PAUL CETERA & DAVID WALTER FOSTER

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: CHICAGO 17

LABEL: FULL MOON

GENRE: SOFT ROCK

YEAR: 1984

 

       Chicago is an American rock band formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1967. The group was initially billed as The Big Thing before calling themselves the Chicago Transit Authority in 1968, and then shortening the name in 1969. The self-described "rock and roll band with horns" blended elements of classical music, jazz, R&B, and pop music. They produced numerous top-40 hits over two decades, and continue to record and perform live.

           Growing out of several Chicago-area bands in the late 1960s, the line-up consisted of Peter Cetera on bass, Terry Kath on guitar, Robert Lamm on keyboards, Lee Loughnane on trumpet, James Pankow on trombone, Walter Parazaider on woodwinds, and Danny Seraphine on drums. Cetera, Kath, and Lamm shared lead vocal duties. Laudir de Oliveira joined the band as a percussionist and second drummer in 1974. Kath died in 1978, and was replaced by several guitarists in succession. Bill Champlin joined in 1981, providing vocals, keyboards, and rhythm guitar. Cetera left the band in 1985 and was replaced by Jason Scheff. Seraphine left in 1990, and was replaced by Tris Imboden. The band's lineup has been more fluid since 2000, but keyboardist Robert Lamm and the entire horn section of Loughnane, Pankow, and Parazaider have remained constant members.

     The band's first album, Chicago Transit Authority(1969), a sprawling double album filled with experimental rock songs, failed to produce a hit single. Their second album, another double album simply titled Chicago (1970) (later retroactively titled Chicago II) continued with the format of experimental rock, however the album produced two top-10 singles, "Make Me Smile", which peaked at 9 on the Billboard Hot 100, and "25 or 6 to 4", which peaked at 4. Re-releases of several singles from the first album also charted in the top 10 in 1970, and 1971. The band would continue to produce hit albums based on the formula established with their first two records until 1978, when Kath died of an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound. The band changed sounds as the 1980s began, where Peter Cetera and producer David Foster took the band in a less progressive direction, producing a number of soft rock and easy listening hits, including "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" (1982) from Chicago 16 and "You're the Inspiration" (1984) from Chicago 17, the band's biggest selling album in their career. Cetera left to pursue a solo career in 1985, but the band continued to produce hit singles under Foster's direction, including "Will You Still Love Me?" (1986), featuring lead vocals from new bassist Jason Scheff, and the band's best selling single of all time, "Look Away" (1988), with vocals by Bill Champlin. While the band failed to produce any hit songs from the 1990s onward, they continued to release albums and tour, including several highly successful co-headlining tours with fellow horn-based band Earth, Wind, and Fire. Their most recent album is Chicago XXXVII: Chicago Christmas from 2019.

         In September 2008, Billboard ranked Chicago at number thirteen in a list of the top 100 artists of all time for Hot 100 singles chart success, and ranked them at number fifteen on the same list produced in October 2015. Billboard also ranked Chicago ninth on the list of the 100 greatest artists of all time in terms of Billboard 200 album chart success in October 2015. Chicago is one of the longest-running and most successful rock groups, and one of the world's best-selling groups of all time, having sold more than 100 million records. In 1971, Chicago was the first rock act to sell out Carnegie Hall for a week.

       "You're the Inspiration" is a song written by Peter Cetera and David Foster for the group Chicago and recorded for their fourteenth studio album Chicago 17 (1984), with Cetera singing lead vocals. The third single released from that album, it reached Nº 3 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart in January 1985 and also climbed to the top position on the Adult Contemporary chart at the same time. The song won honors for Cetera from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers(ASCAP), in 1986 in the most-performed songs category.

          Peter Cetera re-recorded the song for his 1997 solo álbum You're the Inspiration: A Collection. That same year he also recorded a single version with the vocal R&B group, Az Yet.

You know our love was meant to be

The kind of love that lasts forever

And I want you here with me

From tonight until the end of time

You should know, everywhere I go

You're always on my mind, in my heart, in my soul

 

Baby, you're the meaning in my life

You're the inspiration

You bring feeling to my life

You're the inspiration

Wanna have you near me

I wanna have you hear me sayin

No one needs you more than I need you

 

And I know, yes I know that its plain to see

We're so in love when we're together

Now I know, that I need you here with me

From tonight until the end of time

You should know, everywhere I go

You're always on my mind, in my heart, in my soul

 

You're the meaning in my life

You're the inspiration

You bring feeling to my life

You're the inspiration

Wanna have you near me

I wanna have you hear me sayin

No one needs you more than I need you

 

Wanna have you near me

I wanna have you hear me sayin

No one needs you more than I need you

 

Baby, you're the meaning in my life

You're the inspiration

You bring feeling to my life

You're the inspiration

 

When you love somebody

Ill the end of time

When you love somebody

Always on my mind

(No one needs you more than I)

When you love somebody

Till the end of time

When you love somebody

Always on my mind.

EVER SINCE THE WOLD BEGAN

SURVIVOR

SONGWRITER: JAMES M. PETERIK & FRANKIE M., III SULLIVAN

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: EYE OF THE TIGER

LABEL: SCOTT BROTHERS

GENRE: ROCK

YEAR: 1982

 

         Survivor are an American rock band formed in Chicago in 1978 by Jim Peterik and Frankie Sullivan. The band achieved its best success in the 1980s, producing many charting singles, especially in the United States. The band is best-known for its double-platinum-certified 1982 hit "Eye of the Tiger", the theme song for the 1982 motion picture Rocky III; that single spent six weeks at number one in the US. The band continued to chart in the mid-1980s with singles like "Burning Heart" (US number 2), "The Search Is Over" (US number 4), "High on You" (US number 8), "Is This Love" (US number 9), and "I Can't Hold Back" (US number 13).

          "Ever Since the World Began" is a power ballad by American rock band Survivor, released in 1982 from the group's third album Eye of the Tiger. Composed by the band's guitarist Frankie Sullivan and keyboardist Jim Peterik, the song was written for someone fighting against cancer; Frankie Sullivan said in an interview that a member of his immediate family was battling the disease and later succumbed to it. He said the song had a lot of true meaning to him. It also had a lot of significance for co-writer Jim Peterik, as it was one of the final songs he played for his father before the latter's death shortly before the Eye of the Tiger album's release.

I'll never know what brought me here

As if somebody led my hand

It seems I hardly had to steer

My course was planned

And destiny, it guides us all

And by it's hand we rise and fall

But only for a moment

Time enough to catch our breath again

 

And we're just another piece of the puzzle

Just another part of the plan

How one life touches the other

Is so hard to understand

Still we walk this road together

We try and go as far as we can

And we have waited for this moment in time

Ever since the world began

 

Taken in the times gone by

We wonder how it all began

We never know and still we try

To understand

And even though the seasons change

The reasons shall remain the same

It's love that keeps us holding on

Till we can see the sun again

 

And we're just another piece of the puzzle

Just another part of the plan

And we have waited for this moment in time

Ever since the world began

 

And I stand alone a man of stone

Against the driving rain

And the night, it's got your number

And the wind, it cries your name

And we search for clues, win or lose

In this we're all the same

The hope still burns eternal

We're the keeper of the flame...

 

And we're just another piece of the puzzle

Just another part of the plan

How one life touches the other

Is so hard to understand

Still we walk this road together

We try and go as far as we can

And we have waited for this moment in time

Ever since the world began...

RIGHT HERE WAITING

RICHARD MARX

SONGWRITER: RICHARD MARX

COUNTRY: U. S. A.

ALBUM: REPEAT OFFENDER

LABEL: CAPITOL RECORDS

GENRE: POP ROCK

YEAR: 1989

 

         Richard Noel Marx(born September 16, 1963) is an American adult contemporary and pop rock singer and songwriter.

       His self-titled debut album went triple-platinum in 1987, and his first single, "Don't Mean Nothing", reached number three on the Bilboard Hot 100 chart. Between 1987 and 1994, he had 14 top 20 hits, including three number one singles; his first seven singles all reached the top five. His singles during the late 1980s and 1990s included "Endless Summer Nights", "Hold On to the Nights", "Right Here Waiting", "Now and Forever", "Hazard", and "At the Beginning" with Donna Lewis. Marx has also written or collaborated on songs with other artists such as "This I Promise You" by NSYNC and "Dance with My Father" by Luther Vandross. The latter song won several Grammy Awards. Songs written or co-written by Marx have topped the charts in four different decades.

          Repeat Offender is the second studio album by singer/songwriter Richard Marx. Released in mid-1989, it reached No. 1 on the Billboard Pop Albums chart. The album was certified four times platinum in United States due to five major singles on the Billboard charts, including two No. 1 hits: "Satisfied" and the Platinum-certified "Right Here Waiting".

Oceans apart, day after day

And I slowly go insane

I hear your voice on the line

But it doesn't stop the pain

 

If I see you next to never

How can we say forever?

 

Wherever you go

Whatever you do

I will be right here waiting for you

Whatever it takes

Or how my heart breaks

I will be right here waiting for you

 

I took for granted, all the times

That I thought would last somehow

I hear the laughter, I taste the tears

But I can't get near you now

 

Oh, can't you see it, baby?

You've got me going crazy

 

Wherever you go

Whatever you do

I will be right here waiting for you

Whatever it takes

Or how my heart breaks

I will be right here waiting for you

 

I wonder how we can survive

This romance

But in the end, if I'm with you

I'll take the chance

 

Oh, can't you see it, baby?

You've got me going crazy

 

Wherever you go

Whatever you do

I will be right here waiting for you

Whatever it takes

Or how my heart breaks

I will be right here waiting for you

Waiting for you.

SKYLINE PIGEON

ELTON JOHN

SONGWRITERS: BERNIE TAUPIN / ELTON JOHN

COUNTRY: U. K.

ALBUM: EMPTY SKY

LABEL: DJM RECORDS

GENRE: BALLAD

YEAR: 1980

 

           Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is an English singer, songwriter, pianist and composer. Collaborating with lyricist Bernie Taupin since 1967 on more than 30 albums, John has sold over 300 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He has more than fifty Top 40 hits in the UK Singles Chart and US Billboard Hot 100, including seven number ones in the UK and nine in the US, as well as seven consecutive number-one albums in the US. His tribute single "Candle in the Wind 1997", rewritten in dedication to Diana, Princess of Wales, sold over 33 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling chart single of all time. According to Billboard in 2019, John is the top solo artist in US chart history (third overall), and the top Adult Contemporary artist of all time.

           Raised in the Pinner area of Greater London, John learned to play piano at an early age, and by 1962 had formed Bluesology, an R&B band with whom he played until 1967. He met his longtime musical partner Taupin in 1967, after they both answered an advert for songwriters. For two years, they wrote songs for artists including Lulu, and John worked as a session musician for artists including the Hollies and the Scaffold. In 1969, John's debut album, Empty Sky, was released. In 1970, his first hit single, "Your Song", from his second album, Elton John, became his first top ten in both the UK and the US. His most commercially successful period, 1970–1976, included Honky Château(1972), Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player(1973), Goodbye Yellow Brick Road(1973) and his first Greatest Hits compilation — the latter two among the official best-selling albums worldwide. John has also had success in musical films and theatre, composing for The Lion King and its stage adaptation, Aida and Billy Elliot the Musical.

           John has received five Grammy Awards, five Brit Awards; including for Outstanding Contribution to Music; two Academy Awards, two Golden Globes, a Tony Award, a Disney Legends Award, and the Kennedy Center Honor. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him 49th on its list of 100 influential musicians of the rock and roll era. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for "services to music and charitable services" in 1998. His music career was dramatised in the 2019 biopic Rocketman.

        "Skyline Pigeon" is a ballad composed and performed by English musician Elton John with lyrics by Bernie Taupin. It is the eighth track on his first album, Empty Sky. It was originally released by Guy Darrell and Roger James Cooke simultaneously as a single in August 1969. 

Turn me loose from your hands

Let me fly to distant lands

Over green fields, trees and mountains

Flowers and forest fountains

Home along the lanes of the skyway

 

For this dark and lonely room

Projects a shadow cast in gloom

And my eyes are mirrors

Of the world outside

Thinking of the ways

That the wind can turn the tide

And these shadows turn

From purple into grey

 

For just a Skyline Pigeon

Dreaming of the open

Waiting for the day

He can spread his wings

And fly away again

 

Fly away, skyline pigeon, fly

Towards the dreams

You've left so very far behind

Fly away, skyline pigeon, fly

Towards the dreams

You've left so very far behind

 

Let me wake up in the morning

To the smell of new mown hay

To laugh and cry, to live and die

In the brightness of my day

 

I want to hear the pealing bells

Of distant churches sing

But most of all please free me

From this aching metal ring

And open out this cage towards the sun

 

For just a Skyline Pigeon

Dreaming of the open

Waiting for the day

He can spread his wings

And fly away again

 

Fly away, skyline pigeon, fly

Towards the dreams

You've left so very far behind

Fly away, skyline pigeon, fly

Towards the dreams

You've left so very, so very far behind.