I had to do an MRI last week and since it’s for my breast, it’s an incredibly painful experience. My technician did his best to make me comfortable but a short torso means I don’t properly fit the apparatus so it’s 15 minutes of torture where I’m trying to properly breathe while in a very unnatural position. I use every relaxation technique I know but it only works for a while.
This time, I’m working on not panicking when these words start looping in my head:
If you leave me now
You'll take away the biggest part of me
Ooh, no, baby, please don't go
I don’t know where they came from. I haven’t listened to that song for years. Yet it immediately soothed me for a few minutes. It reminded me how Gino Vanelli got me through radiation. And when this song no longer worked, I cycled through others and managed to get through without hitting the panic button.1 So in honour of the song getting me through, it gets a SOTD.
Since my parents left the car radio on CRFB 1010, I heard this song a lot as a child.2 It quickly became a mainstay of AOR radio, of which CRFB was the most prominent in Toronto. Looking back on it now, it was my gateway into Chicago’s work.
Written by Peter Cetera, it broke new territory as the first Chicago song to feature an acoustic guitar as the lead instrument played by the band's manager James William Guercio, who also produced the track. The story is that Cetera’s wife asked for a divorce and he wrote this song in response.
This song was the first #1 for the group and it won them Grammys for Best Arrangement, Instrumental and Vocals (Guercio and Jimmie Haskell, who arranged the strings) and Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals. The song was so dominant that it was said that in New York could hear the song playing on four different stations, each with varying formats, simultaneously. It remains the band’s biggest hit.
Five years ago, Cetera recorded a duet version with Mexican-Italian singer Filippa Giordano for her album Friends & Legends Duet. It’s done in a lush orchestration style.
In whichever version, enjoy your song of the day!
I did have to do that once. They took me out and the machine then wouldn’t restart. They had to reboot it, which took 45 minutes - time I used to nap. That was the only session that I was bone-relaxed and able to be comfortable in the machine. Not something I want to repeat though. I’ve tried being bone-tired the next time but it didn’t work.
Maybe that’s why it relaxed me. A comforting piece of my childhood.
Wow....does this take me back! Thanks for sharing this. ❤️❤️
I hope all went well with your MRI. Sounds incredibly painful and anxiety-inducing!