![lyrics sitting on the dock of the bay lyrics sitting on the dock of the bay](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/6q-XYzAetxw/hqdefault.jpg)
Not that it plays anything like that over its sweetly swaying groove, which lends a sort of lazy nobility to the “Sittin’ on the dock of the bay/ Wasting time” refrain, Otis’ desperation barely breaking through the determinedly placid production. That might even be the optimistic way of interpreting the lyric, which when read out of context comes off nearly like the pop equivalent to No Exit, a bitter resignation to an eternity of monotony, without potential for escape. Given all this, it’s hard not to read the song’s climactic bridge - “Looks like nothing’s gonna change/ Everything still remains the same/ I can’t do what ten people tell me to do/ So I guess I’ll remain the same!” as a glum lament over the lack of support he received while attempting to evolve his sound. “It’s time for my to change in my music,” he insisted in response. A recent Rolling Stone history on “Dock” reports that not only were Walden and Stax co-founder Jim Stewart wary of Otis’ new direction, but his own wife, Zelma Redding, was left unimpressed: “Oh, God, you are changing,” she told him in dismay. Indeed, the song could be read as Otis venting his frustration at folks like his manager telling him to stay in his R&B lane, and curtail his Fab Four-sized ambitions. And “pop” the song certainly was - but it was also possibly Redding’s richest composition to date, a mix of blissful Stax stillness and profound existential anxiety that showed a complex level of contemplative soul previously unexplored on the pop charts. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to add newfound detail and depth to the lyrics and production of his music, and he started writing “Dock,” appropriately enough, while on the houseboat of famed rock promoter Bill Graham.īecause of its laconic vibe, accessible melody and whistling outro - which Redding didn’t originally intend to keep - manager Phil Walden worried the song would be seen as “too pop” for his artist, who’d made his name largely on fiery, horn-led stomps and frenzied vocal performances. He was inspired by The Beatles’ recently released Sgt. 8), was co-written by Redding and M.G.’s guitarist Steve Cropper as the soul legend was looking to expand his audience to the pop and rock worlds, a crossover he’d begun in earnest with his incendiary performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in the summer of 1967. In 1999, BMI named the song as the sixth-most performed song of the 20th century.“(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” which was released as a single 50 years ago this Monday (Jan. It also won two Grammy Awards: Best R&B Song and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. It became Redding's most successful record worldwide, selling over four million copies. The track became the first ever posthumous #1 single in the US. The song topped the US chart in March 1968, and its album Dock of the Bay became his largest-selling so far. '(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay' was released in January 1968, soon after Redding's death.
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He added the sound of seagulls and waves to the background, as Redding had requested. He was aged just 26.Īfter Redding's death, Cropper mixed finished the song at Stax Studios. On December 10, just days after recording the song, his plane crashed into Lake Monona, outside Madison, Wisconsin. He forgot what it was so he started whistling." Cropper said Redding had "this little fadeout rap he was gonna do, an ad-lib. The song features a whistled tune before fading away. Otis Redding didn't think the song was ready, but sadly he never got the chance to finish it in the way he had hoped. Otis Redding died soon after recording the song.There had been concerns from his record company that 'Dock of the Bay' was too poppy for an Otis Redding song, and there was talk of gospel act the Staple Singers singing backing vocals. While discussing the song with his wife, Redding stated that was looking to "be a little different", and "change his style". 'Dock of the Bay' was exactly that: 'I left my home in Georgia, headed for the Frisco Bay' was all about him going out to San Francisco to perform." Pitiful', 'Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa-Fa (Sad Song)' they were about Otis and Otis' life. "Otis didn't really write about himself but I did. If you listen to the songs I collaborated with Otis, most of the lyrics are about him. "'I watch the ships come in and I watch them roll away again'. The story that I got he was renting boathouse or stayed at a boathouse or something and that's where he got the idea of the ships coming in the bay there. In 1990, Cropper said of the song's creation: "Otis was one of those the kind of guys who had 100 ideas.