Oh, man, this is one of my favorite songs of all time. Restrained, but emotive. Succinct, but powerful. Laid-back, but passionate. It's deliberately a more relaxed sound than Redding's usual style (apparently his record label considered adding a gospel chorus because the song was "too pop oriented"). There's a lot of pain in this song, a lot of acceptance of the world as it is. I can relate, certainly, when Redding sings "Looks like nothin's gonna change; everything still remains the same." Yeah. This song has the benefit of being true, which is much better than being flashy. Redding was one of the great singers, and this song, which was released just after his tragic death in a plane crash in late 1967, became the first posthumous #1 single in US chart history. And it can't be just because he died. It's also one of the most inspired songs in music history.
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Song of the Week: "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay"
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4 comments:
did you mean to say it was the first posthumous single to reach #1? I have a hard time believing it was the first posthumous single.
yes, a great song.
I love this song. They used to have a recording studio in West Edmonton Mall where you could cut a track. Me and my mates choose 'Dock of the Bay' for the first cut on our album - "Wrench and the Bag of Hammers - The Chesterfield Years". Needless to say we rocked it. Totally deserving to post about. Good job.
I second your thoughts, Frog... this is a great song, utterly timeless, one of my favorites...
This was one of the songs I first remember hearing on the radio. It's an amazing song-- both simple and complex. I was actually looking it up on Wikipedia a couple of weeks ago. Redding was visiting friends in Sausalito, which, back in the day, was a hodge-podge of houseboats, on San Francisco Bay.
The song was also one of the first songs I ever figured out on guitar. My old girlfriend Cara (circa 1988) told me that she fell in love with me listening to me play the song on guitar and sing it on the beach on Lake Michigan one night with a bunch of co-workers.
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