Takes me back to listening to the AM clock radio back in the day. I always remember digging this one. To part of my mind I think a funny lead-in is to say “Beware of the moderns! Look how they purposely omit the traditional instruments of the funk! Nothing but keyboards, and drums, a tamborine and a DAMN COW BELL!!!”
And in 1976, with those instruments, I’m gonna testify right now that they DID bring the funk outta them keyboards and cowbells. They did.
I think the part that perhaps illustrates the great magic best is that the tune is so darn simple. Sure it was probably seen as a bit gimmicky to go all keyboard like that back in those days of K.C. and Kiss. But from my own memories, hearing plays of this song spans many eras of my own life. I have no doubt at all that I heard this song through all of my eras since 1976.
Well, I think it’s time to get ready
To realize just what I have found
I have lived only half of what I am
It’s all clear to me now
If you know the song, you know what part of it that is. I think that’s a song writer pretty much giving it to ya, lyric-wise. (Yes, I’m laughing as I write that… because, of course, I really do believe that.)
I know this journal has leaned quite often on the music critiques as my posts. It’s not really my mission whatsoever to actually “critique” musicians. I never want to put any of them down in any way. Instead I often view this forum as if I am sifting through someone’s old record collection or even doing research in the library when I come across an old gem. And this one took me to my childhood in both San Bruno and Concord, California where I legitimately remember listening to this song being played on my AM clock radio on KFRC, San Francisco.
Yeah, I guess I was about seven years old… and I was a religious listener of the night-time radio shows. (It’s true, Mom.) I mean, like every night. And I knew my seventies artists like frequent friends. :)
I remember it well… it was an olive-green, mono-speaker clock radio made by General Electric. The hands (yes, hands) on the clock glowed flourescent green at night. It was probably made in the U.S.A.