Chicago "I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love (Single & Video)"

"I Don't Wanna Live Without Your Love" is a hit song written by Diane Warren and Albert Hammond for the group Chicago and recorded for their album Chicago 19 (1988), with Bill Champlin singing lead vocals. It is the first Chicago single to feature Champlin performing all lead vocals himself. The first single released from Chicago 19, it reached number three on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart. The B-side of the single was "I Stand Up" written by Robert Lamm and Gerard McMahon. The song was featured in the Netflix original movie Death Note, which is based on the anime of the same name.

Chicago "Will You Still Love Me? (Single & Video)"

"Will You Still Love Me?" is a song recorded by the American rock band Chicago for their fifteenth studio album Chicago 18 (1986). The song was written by David Foster, Tom Keane and Richard Baskin, and produced by Foster.

The second single released from the Chicago 18 album, it reached number three on the US Billboard Hot 100 in early 1987, and also at number two on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart.

The song was Chicago's first top-ten hit following the departure of Peter Cetera, and it featured new singer and bassist Jason Scheff on lead vocals. One of the song's co-writers, Tom Keane had previously fronted the early 1980s band Keane, for which Jason Scheff played bass.

Chicago "Baby, What A Big Surprise (Single & Video)"

"Baby, What a Big Surprise" is a power ballad written by Peter Cetera for the group Chicago and recorded for their album Chicago XI (1977), with Cetera singing lead vocals. The first single released from the album reached number 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys and Cetera's brother, Tim Cetera, provided additional backing vocals on the recording while saxophonist Walt Parazaider plays flute on the distinctive introduction and trumpeter Lee Loughnane plays a piccolo trumpet.

Although Chicago XI yielded two more minor singles, "Baby, What a Big Surprise" was Chicago's last top ten single before the accidental death of guitarist Terry Kath, and was also their last Top Ten single produced by James William Guercio.

Cash Box said that "frequent repetition drives the memorable chorus home, while classically influenced strings, brass and vocals lend a stately touch."

Cetera re-recorded the song as a solo artist for his 1997 album You're the Inspiration: A Collection.

Chicago "If You Leave Me Now (Single & Video)"

"If You Leave Me Now" is a song by the American rock group Chicago, from their album Chicago X. It was written and sung by bass player Peter Cetera and released as a single on July 30, 1976. It is also the title of a Chicago compilation album released by Columbia Records (Columbia 38590) in 1983.

The single topped the Billboard Hot 100 on October 23, 1976, and stayed there for two weeks, making it the first number one hit for the group as well as hitting number one on the Easy Listening charts. "If You Leave Me Now" was also Chicago's biggest hit internationally, topping the charts in other countries such as the UK, Australia, Ireland, Canada, and Netherlands. In the UK it maintained the number one position for three weeks. It was one of five "non-disco" songs to make it to number one in the US in a nine-month period of 1976. According to writer Zachary Houle of PopMatters, "The song was so pervasive on radio upon its release that, reportedly, those tuning in within New York could hear the song playing on four different stations, each with varying formats, simultaneously."

The song won Grammy Awards for Best Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) (strings) for arranger Jimmie Haskell and producer James William Guercio and Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group or Chorus, the first Grammy Award won by the group. It also received a Grammy nomination for Record of the Year. In addition, by August 1978 it had sold 1.4 million copies in the United States alone. It has been certified gold and platinum by the RIAA. In an article from June 2020, The Guardian listed "If You Leave Me Now" as number 73 on its list of "The Greatest UK No 1s: 100–1", noting, "It’s impossibly lush and beautifully written, but its sadness is pervasive and affecting."

In 2010 Chicago teamed with the American Cancer Society and offered the opportunity to bid on the chance to sing their hit, "If You Leave Me Now" with them on stage live at their concerts, with proceeds going to the American Cancer Society to fight breast cancer. The fund raising effort has continued in succeeding years.

Peter Cetera originally wrote "If You Leave Me Now" at the same time as Chicago VII's "Wishing You Were Here", and composed it on a guitar. According to information on the sheet music for the song at MusicNotes, "If You Leave Me Now" is written in the key of B major, and Cetera's vocal range varies between F sharp 4 (F♯4) and D sharp 6 (D♯6).

Cash Box said that it's "an excellent ballad," with "lushly colored" instrumentation and "carefully constructed" vocals.

Chicago "Saturday In The Park (Single & Video)"

"Saturday in the Park" is a song written by Robert Lamm and recorded by the group Chicago for their 1972 album Chicago V.

"Saturday in the Park" was very successful upon release, reaching No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the band's highest-charting single at the time, helping lift the album to No. 1. Billboard ranked it as the No. 76 song for 1972. The single was certified Gold by the RIAA, selling over 1,000,000 units in the U.S. alone.

According to fellow Chicago member Walter Parazaider, Lamm was inspired to write the song during the recording of Chicago III in New York City on Saturday, July 4, 1970:

Robert came back to the hotel from Central Park very excited after seeing the steel drum players, singers, dancers, and jugglers. I said, 'Man, it's time to put music to this!

However, Lamm recalls the story differently, as he told Billboard magazine:

It was written as I was looking at footage from a film I shot in Central Park, over a couple of years, back in the early ‘70s. I shot this film and somewhere down the line I edited it into some kind of a narrative, and as I watched the film I jotted down some ideas based on what I was seeing and had experienced. And it was really kind of that peace and love thing that happened in Central Park and in many parks all over the world, perhaps on a Saturday, where people just relax and enjoy each other’s presence, and the activities we observe and the feelings we get from feeling a part of a day like that.

In the studio version of the song, the line "singing Italian songs" is followed by "Eh Cumpari" (the title of a song made famous by Julius La Rosa in 1953), and then Italian-sounding nonsense words, rendered in the printed lyrics as "?". Piano, guitar, and vocal sheet music arrangements have often read "improvised Italian lyrics" in parentheses after this line. However, in a film of Chicago performing "Saturday in the Park" at the Arie Crown Theater in Chicago in 1972, Robert Lamm clearly sings, "Eh Cumpari, ci vo sunari," the first line of "Eh, Cumpari!".

Chicago "25 Or 6 To 4 (Single & Video)"

"25 or 6 to 4" is a song written by American musician Robert Lamm, one of the founding members of the band Chicago. It was recorded in 1969 for their second album, Chicago, with Peter Cetera on lead vocals.

In a 2013 interview, Robert Lamm said he composed "25 or 6 to 4" on a twelve-string guitar with only ten strings — it was missing the two low E strings — and that he wrote the lyrics in one day. The band first rehearsed the song at the Whisky a Go Go.

Lamm said the song is about trying to write a song in the middle of the night. The song's title is the time at which the song is set: 25 or 26 minutes before 4 AM (twenty-five or [twenty-]six [minutes] to four [o’clock]). Because of the unique phrasing of the song's title, "25 or 6 to 4" has been interpreted to mean everything from a quantity of illicit drugs to the name of a famous person in code.

The song's opening guitar riff has been compared to chord progressions and riffs in other songs. In the opinion of writer Melissa Locker:

...the opening guitar riff from Green Day’s 'Brain Stew' bears a striking similarity to the opening stanza of Chicago’s '25 or 6 to 4.'

LA Weekly's music editor, Andy Hermann, names it "The Riff" and describes it as follows:

It's a descending five-chord pattern, typically played as power chords over four bars, with the last two chords sharing the last bar. The most common variant of it goes from A minor to G to F sharp to F to E, although it can also be played as Am-G-D-F-E or even Am-G-D9-F♯-F-E...

Hermann details the riff's similarity to the chord progression in Led Zeppelin's version of "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" by Anne Bredon, which came out a year before "25 or 6 to 4", and the similarity of that chord progression to one in George Harrison's song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", which came out even earlier. He labels "Brain Stew", released in 1996, as "derivative" by comparison to "25 or 6 to 4".

The original recording features an electric guitar solo using a wah-wah pedal by Chicago guitarist Terry Kath, and a lead vocal line in the Aeolian mode.

The album was released in January 1970 and the song was edited and released as a single in June (omitting second verse and most of guitar solo), climbing to number 4 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 7 on the UK Singles Chart. It was the band's first song to reach the top five in the US. It has been included in numerous Chicago compilation albums. In 2015, Dave Swanson, writing for Ultimate Classic Rock, listed the song as number one on his top ten list of Chicago songs. Classic Rock Review says the song is "one of the most indelible Chicago tunes". In 2019, Bobby Olivier and Andrew Unterberger, music critics for Billboard magazine, ranked the song number one on their list of "The 50 Best Chicago Songs".

The song was banned in Singapore in 1970 due to "alleged allusions to drugs"; the ban extended to later albums that included the song, such as Chicago 18. In 1993, the ban on this song was lifted, along with long-time bans on songs by other artists such as the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Creedence Clearwater Revival.

An updated version of "25 or 6 to 4" was recorded for the 1986 album Chicago 18 with James Pankow listed as co-writer, and new band member Jason Scheff on lead vocals. It featured two verses instead of three. The single reached number 48 on the US chart. This version was also used as the B-side for the band's next single in 1986, "Will You Still Love Me?"

Through the 2010s, "25 or 6 to 4" continued to be a staple in Chicago's live concert set list and in Peter Cetera's solo concert set list. In 2016, the group's former drummer Danny Seraphine reunited on stage with Chicago to perform "25 or 6 to 4" and two other songs at their induction ceremony for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The music video for the 1986 remake won an American Video Award, in the Best Cinematography category, for Bobby Byrne.

Chicago "Questions 67 and 68 (Single & Video)"

"Questions 67 and 68" is a 1969 song written by Robert Lamm for the rock band Chicago (then known as Chicago Transit Authority) and recorded for their debut album Chicago Transit Authority. It was their first single release. Peter Cetera is the primary lead singer with Lamm also on vocals. In 2015, Dave Swanson, writing for Ultimate Classic Rock, listed the song as ninth in a list of top ten Chicago songs. Writing for Rock Cellar magazine, Frank Mastropolo rated the song as number 11 in a list of "Top 11 Question Songs".

The questions in "Questions 67 and 68" relate to the nature of a romantic relationship Lamm had during 1967 and 1968. In 2008, Lamm said, " 'It’s about a girl I knew during those years with a hint of acid imagery and very Beatles influenced.' "The lyrics include the title phrase only as the last words.

With respect to the horn arrangement, James Pankow said in a 2000 Goldmine article, " 'In the old days, however, I used to write horns very harmonically. 'Questions 67 & 68' is probably a very good example of how I used to approach horns. I had no rests. We played from the first bar of the song, which is not very musical anymore. We got away with that then, I guess. Guercio [Chicago's producer then] used to triple, quite often. He'd have three sections, and the one in the middle was me playing pedals, that's why it sounded like Count Basie. It sounded like a big band.' "

Billboard described the single as "a soulful, driving rhythm ballad with big band in strong support," and as a "potent chart item."

Released in July 1969, the song peaked at No. 71 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and No. 82 on the Cash Box Top 100. After the band's success with subsequent singles, "Questions 67 and 68" was edited to a more radio-friendly length and was re-released in September 1971, with "I'm a Man" as the B-side. The edited single climbed to No. 24 on Billboard and No. 13 on Cash Box.

Cetera and Lamm recorded Japanese-language vocals for the song in 1971, and the version of the song with those vocals was released as a single in Japan. Columbia Records released the song only as a radio-only promotional 45 rpm single, with the English version on the other side. This recording was released digitally in 1998 on the Japan-only compilation CD The Heart Of Chicago 1967-1971 Volume II Special Edition (green cover), which also contains "Lowdown" sung in Japanese. The group performed the song live with the Japanese lyrics during tours of Japan in 1972, documented on the Live In Japan album, and again in 1995. The single's duration is incorrectly listed as 3:07, rather than 4:36, and omits the 22 second final sustained note.