Roll With It by Steve Winwood

Album: Roll With It (1988)

Charted: 53 1

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Songfacts®:

This song is about overcoming obstacles and working with what life gives you. Winwood emerged as a successful solo artist in the '80s after struggling with personal problems, including a divorce.
Winwood wrote this song with the lyricist Will Jennings, who worked on most of Winwood's solo hits.
Winwood's biggest solo hit in the US, this spent four weeks at #1 and also topped the pop chart in his native Britain. The album of the same title also topped the US albums chart.
The Memphis Horns played on this song, giving it a brassy Motown feel. Motown Records thought the song was too similar to the 1966 track "(I'm A) Road Runner" by Jr. Walker & the All Stars, released on Motown's subsidiary Soul Records. After legal action, the writers of "(I'm A) Road Runner" - Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland and Eddie Holland - were added to the credits of "Roll With It."
Winwood was 40 years old when this went to #1 in America in July 1988. The older crowd was well represented in pop music at this time - Chicago, George Harrison and The Beach Boys all had chart-toppers as well. It was a time when older-skewing songs like "Roll With It" could share space on pop playlists with the likes of Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston and Poison.
This song holds the distinction of being the last #1 song of Casey Kasem's 18-year run as original host of the American Top 40 radio show (he would rejoin the show 10 years later) - and the first #1 song for the show under Kasem's successor, Shadoe Stevens. >>
Suggestion credit:
Joshua - Twin Cities, MN
David Fincher, whose later directed the films Seven, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Gone Girl, directed the music video.

Comments: 3

Anton from EarthA classic, timeless blues number that never grows old. Liking it more today than when it first came out. The video, IMO, seems to fit the song perfectly.
Jb from Hanover, NhThis Song Is In The Best British Film Of All Time. The Movie Is Called Nuns On The Run Staring Eric Idle And Robbie Coltrane Who Play Two Nuns On The Run A Must See
Mark from Jefferson City, MoLove the horns! I like the part in the video when the button pops loose and goes flying toward the camera.

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