July 28, 2018 - Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah - Lake Shore Drive (1971)

Lake Shore Drive is a famous stretch of US Highway 41 that flows along Lake Michigan in Chicago, on the eastern edge of downtown. It passes by many landmarks: the Drake Hotel (as seen in Risky Business), Grant Park, Lincoln Park, Field Museum, Museum of Science and Industry, and Soldier Field (where the Chicago Bears play).

Growing up in Chicagoland, I remember driving around in the summer with my friends and hearing Aliotta Haynes and Jeremiah's song on the classic rock radio station. It was pretty much guaranteed that you would hear it once in awhile. I don't know if I ever heard it while slipping on by on LSD, but then again I was never Friday night trouble bound. I was generally a clean teen.

It's a song of great nostalgia for Chicago folk, wistful and pure, blowing in from the prairies on a cool breeze. It could have been a tune by America or Bread, it sounds so wholesome. It's built on a great river of piano, E - C#m - G#m. Stick an A in here and there. The vocals are about as fluffy as it gets, the touch the feel of cotton, the fabric of our lives, enlightened farm boys who can smell the green. The whole mellow vibe is supplemented by gentle strings and strummed acoustic guitars.

Like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, the whole LSD thing is supposed to be a coincidence. Yeah, right. Pretty blue lights along the way, help you right on by. My favorite line is:

And it's four o'clock in the morning and all the people have gone away...such an existentialist dream, being all alone in the city. Good thing Lake Shore Drive is here to guide you home.

The song appeared in that sci-fi movie about the talking squirrel, Defenders of the Universe or something, along with a bunch of other 70s AM radio hits. All three of the guys are dead, so they never got to hear their song in the talking squirrel movie. Actually, Skip Haynes may have heard about it, he died last year. Well, hopefully their families appreciated it.

Billy Joel took the piano riff and spazzed it up for the prelude to his angry young man tune, or so I like to imagine (I refuse to link to it, that would be cruel and unusual). Billy Hyperactive Piano Man. Calm down, dude!