Along Comes A Woman

Album: Chicago 17 (1984)
Charted: 14
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Songfacts®:

  • In this song, a man thinks he's destined for loneliness, but then a woman comes into his life and changes all that. Meeting Ms. Right was a recurring theme in Chicago's music during the 1980s. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Mike - Santa Barbara, CA
  • Peter Cetera sang lead on this and wrote the song with guitarist Mark Goldenberg.
  • The black-and-white video for "Along Comes a Woman" plays like a short film, with Peter Cetera playing an Indiana Jones-type character for the first verse. The rest of the song has Cetera reprising Humphrey Bogart's "Rick" from the movie Casablanca as the owner of a bar in Morocco during WWII.

    Director Jay Dubin, who also helmed the Billy Joel videos for "Uptown Girl" and "Tell Her About It," talked about the experience in a Songfacts interview:

    "The guys in Chicago were really easy. We're very lucky. Most of the guys that we worked with were very easy to work with. I just said, Hey, let me see how close I can come to Casablanca with this small budget. It would be fun to really see if we can get it to look right."

    It was also the perfect setup for an Indiana Jones scene. He explained: "I think one of the reasons we picked that studio was because it had a water pit, which it means there's a false floor. They have a 10 foot by 10 foot hole, basically a little pool in there, so we were able to fill it up with mud and water and stick them in there and put some shrubbery around it."

Comments: 3

  • Seventhmist from 7th HeavenThis song had a "single version" and an "album version." I preferred the "single version," which gave much more emphasis to the percussion.
  • Algorithm from Zurich, SwitzerlandLet me (a computer program ) add that if Pandora's algorithms are any good this bass/ drum / vocal /sampling sound will match up very highly with many tunes from the 1990s or even today.
  • Algorithm from Zurich, SwitzerlandNot sure if I agree with that definition "destined for loneliness." I think it's more that anyone that has fortunate to appreciate and enjoy many women and the one night stand. It's always the greatest feeling when you meet someone NEW... romance is the word. The lyrics are so right f___ on "there's change in the air that your breathing tonight." Not sure everybody really knows what that feels like. And the conquest fewer still. Song was produced by a true master; David Foster. The horn section is so tight and new for its time. The bass is real and heavy. The drums although machine are right on. This may have been Chicago's last hit - they'll be playing this song in 2113.
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