Chicago -- If You Leave Me Now

 

Welcome to the regular weekly Reminiscings of Youth. Back in May, I wrote one ROY on Seals and Crofts' "Summer Breeze", an early 1970s soft rock hit that was suddenly used in a drink commercial earlier this year. And of course, me being all about the nostalgic music, I was quite happy that an oldie could be dusted off to a new generation even if for a TV ad. 

Cue ahead a few months, and lightning has struck twice. Recently, the household goods store in my nation, Canadian Tire, has dusted off its own oldie-but-goodie that I used to hear on AM radio all the time, Chicago's "If You Leave Me Now" from July 1976. The ad has a good dollop of bittersweet humour as Canadian Tire staff wipe a tear but smile in happiness as their favourite products get bought up and taken to their forever home while songwriter Peter Cetera croons away.

When I was hearing this on radio as a kid, I first noticed the French horns and strings, and I categorized it with my limited musical knowledge of the time as "fancy music". There were quite a few of these French horn-laden songs popping up in the 1970s. Nowadays, something like "If You Leave Me Now" would be considered to be 70s soft rock. Ironically, considering how beloved it seems to be now because of the Canadian Tire commercial, I remember the intro for this song popping up on a hard rock radio station ad and being treated as something like the Antichrist.

"If You Leave Me Now" didn't leave the radio-listening public for quite a while as it hit No. 1 in both the United States and Canada along with nations including Australia. It also won a couple of Grammys and by the middle of 1978, it had sold 1.4 million copies just in America alone. This might be Chicago's first ROY article but the band has popped up before on KKP due to "Street Player", the band's disco dance tune.

Well, couldn't find enough kayo kyoku from July 1976 so let's go with June 1976 in terms of what was being released at around the time of "Ai aru Wakare"（愛ある別れ）which is the Japanese translation for "If You Leave Me Now" when the single was being released over there.

Momoe Yamaguchi -- Yokosuka Story （横須賀ストーリー）

Seiko Miki -- Machibuse （まちぶせ）

Teruhiko Aoi -- Anata dake wo (あなただけを)