Your classic summer song of the day is “Saturday in the Park,” by a little horn rock band called Chicago. The track was released in July of 1972, right in the middle of summer, and peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. That made “Saturday in the Park” the group’s highest-charting single up to that time.
“Saturday in the Park” was written by the band’s keyboardist, Robert Lamm and sung by both Lamm and Peter Cetera. It’s all about people dancing, people singing, a man selling ice cream, another man playing guitar, and the like. Perfect summer stuff.
Here’s what Lamm remembers about writing the song:
“It was written as I was looking at footage from a film I shot in Central Park, over a couple of years, back in the early ‘70s. I shot this film and somewhere down the line I edited it into some kind of a narrative, and as I watched the film I jotted down some ideas based on what I was seeing and had experienced. And it was really kind of that peace and love thing that happened in Central Park and in many parks all over the world, perhaps on a Saturday, where people just relax and enjoy each other’s presence, and the activities we observe and the feelings we get from feeling a part of a day like that.”
“Saturday in the Park” was the second track on side two of the group’s Chicago V album, their first single-disc album. All their previous releases were either double or quadruple (Chicago IV) albums, and the switch to a single-album format was deliberate. On Chicago V the band eschewed their earlier approach of longer jazz rock songs arranged in extended suites in favor of shorter, more radio-friendly tunes. They cut the album in about a week in September 1971 but held it for release the following summer. It was their biggest-selling album to date and their first #1 album.
Even though it charted really well, “Saturday in the Park” is not peak Chicago, at least in my opinion. It’s kind of a lightweight little tune, perfect for summertime listening, but lacks the drive and gravitas of earlier songs like “Beginnings” (a previous classic song of the day), “25 or 6 to 4,” or “Make Me Smile.” It’s okay but it’s not great.
That said, the public obviously liked it and so did critics at the time. Cash Box wrote that “The horn rockers paint a scene of inner city greenery that’s sure to grow to Top 10 by summer’s end.” (They were right, of course.) And Record World called it “a medium-paced rocker with an appropriately summery feel.” And that’s all you need to make a great summer song.
(As a bonus, here’s the group performing the song live in November of 1972 at the Arie Crown Theater in their home town of Chicago. It’s always fun to watch Chicago in Chicago.)
