"Day Dreaming"
One of Side-A labels of US vinyl single
Single by Aretha Franklin
from the album Young, Gifted and Black
B-side"I've Been Loving You Too Long"
ReleasedFebruary 1972
GenreSoul[1]
Length4:00
2:41 (7" version)
LabelAtlantic
Songwriter(s)Aretha Franklin
Producer(s)Tom Dowd, Arif Mardin, Jerry Wexler
Aretha Franklin singles chronology
"Rock Steady"
(1971) 		"Day Dreaming"
(1972) 		"All the King's Horses"
(1972)

"Day Dreaming" is a soul single by American singer Aretha Franklin. Released from her album Young, Gifted and Black, it spent two weeks at the top of the Hot Soul Singles chart in April 1972 and peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 11 on the Easy Listening singles chart.[2] Billboard ranked it as the No. 61 song for 1972.[3]

Donny Hathaway plays electric piano on the song and Hubert Laws plays the flute. The single version omits the jazzy daydream-like music heard at the beginning and the ending of the track on the album, because the vocals sounded too psychedelic for most radio airplay. It had been rumored the song was about Temptations' singer Dennis Edwards, which was confirmed by Franklin in 1999 on The Oprah Winfrey Show.[4] It would be her twelfth number-one soul single while at Atlantic Records and sold more than one million copies.

Cover versions

The song has been covered by Mary J. Blige, Will Downing, Penny Ford, Michel'le, Corinne Bailey Rae, Tamia, Tweet and Japanese singer Ua. Rapper T.I.'s "Let's Get Away" interpolated the song from 2003's Trap Muzik, which was his final single released from the album. Rapper Cam'Ron interpolated and covered the song in his single "Daydreaming" from Come Home with Me.

On August 1, 2006, American singer Natalie Cole released her version of "Day Dreaming" as a single from her 12th studio album Leavin'.[5] A video accompanying the song was directed by Doug Biro, and features Cole singing with her band in front of a white background.[6] The cover earned Cole a nomination at the 49th Annual Grammy Awards for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance, but she lost to Mary J. Blige for her 2005 single "Be Without You".[7] Cole said she "added a little bit of a hip-hop feel" to her interpretation of the song.[8] Cole performed "Day Dreaming" at the BET special An Evening of Stars: Tribute to Aretha Franklin along with an arrangement of Franklin's 1970 single "Call Me".[9]

References

  1. ^ Breithaupt, Don; Breithaupt, Jeff (October 15, 1996). "Love American Style: Ballads". Precious and Few - Pop Music in the Early '70s. St. Martin's Griffin. p. 163. ISBN 031214704X.
  2. ^ Whitburn, Joel (2004). Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-2004. Record Research. p. 215.
  3. ^ Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1972
  4. ^ "Aretha Franklin talking about Dennis Edwards".
  5. ^ "Day Dreaming". Verve Records. Archived from the original on October 24, 2015.
  6. ^ "Day Dreaming". Amazon. December 19, 2006. Archived from the original on November 21, 2016.
  7. ^ "Complete list of Grammy nominees". San Francisco Chronicle. Hearst Corporation. December 8, 2006. p. 3. Archived from the original on February 2, 2013.
  8. ^ "A New Direction for Natalie Cole". WBUR-FM. Boston University. December 12, 2012. Archived from the original on November 21, 2016.
  9. ^ Horvitz, Louis J. (Director) (January 27, 2007). An Evening of Stars: Tribute to Aretha Franklin (TV special). United States: Black Entertainment Television (BET).

External links

Aretha Franklin
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