The story goes that Peter Cetera doesn’t like jazz. If it’s true, his distaste for the genre known as America’s classical music isn’t apparent on “Goodbye,” the final Robert Lamm gem on Chicago V.
This jazz-rock track is mostly the former and while Cetera’s singing is not jazz in the purest sense it fits the arrangement very well. It’s one of the finer vocals he laid down during Chicago’s experimental, pre-Caribou years, with no sweetness or pretentiousness added.
James Pankow’s pleasant horn chart is more conventional than most of the others he wrote for this record and Lee Loughnane’s trumpet solo adds a nice color.
Lyrically, Lamm is a bit cryptic – it feels like he is trying to be a self-absorbed singer-songwriter here – but the message he conveyed is one of astonishment at how much of the world the band has seen over the last three years while being grateful he’s getting out of Los Angeles, a place he doesn’t appear to enjoy at all:
I’m away for the day
Feels so good to be soaring
‘Cause L.A. was so boring
Goodbye
There must be room for growing
Somewhere else and I’m going
Goodbye
The days and nights have gone dry
The last three whole years have flashed by.
Good job, Mr. Lamm. It’s too bad your dominance over the song writing would soon come to an end.
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