“Mama Take” is not a standout track. There are no standout tracks on 1979’s Chicago 13. In fact, nothing on 13 even reaches for greatness — but “Mama Take” at least makes a struggling grasp for mediocrity.
Even Peter Cetera’s vocal deliver on “Mama Take” comes across somewhat terse. He sings as if he can’t wait to finish the damned song because there’s something else he’d much rather be doing.
The track actually opens with a catchy guitar riff from Donnie Dacus; it’s arguably his best playing on Chicago 13 – though the bar is admittedly set rather low. It sounds like a song with a promising arrangement that never fully evolved from the demo stage into what would be considered acceptable for placement on an album.
Stylistically, the arrangement is reminiscent of Peter’s later material on Chicago XIV and on his 1981 debut solo album – and luckily Peter fleshed out his arranging skills on XIV. The seeds were here on “Mama Take,” but they didn’t really germinate until songs like “Overnight Café” on XIV or “On the Line” from his first record.
With “Gone Long Gone,” Peter showed himself inching towards his inevitable 1985 exit. “Mama Take” seems to inch him a bit closer yet.
While the arrangement shows some promise, and I have little doubt that under James William Guercio’s production, Chicago could have made “Mama Take” a decent song – but the quality of Phil Ramone’s production drove off a cliff somewhere between 1978’s Hot Streets and 1979’s Chicago 13.
In “Mama Take,” I do hear the potential for what could have been a much better song. The ingredients are certainly there, but on Chicago 13 there seemed to be a case of too many cooks in the kitchen – or maybe it was a case of too many nostrils on the mirror. Instead of fully realizing any of the material on the album, all of it falls somewhere between dreadfully unlistenable and forgettably mediocre.
So, given the rest of the album, perhaps “Mama Take” being forgettably mediocre could be considered a success in comparison — especially if one puts the emphasis on the “suck” part of the word “success.”
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