After the shelving of Stone of Sisyphus, many fans rightfully wondered what was going to happen next with Chicago.
Instead of recording new music, the band cranked out the big band tribute album Night & Day: Big Band in 1995. By 1997, when two new songs appeared on The Heart of Chicago, it had been more than six years since the band had released new, original music. However, instead of an album of new songs, the group split four songs over two greatest-hits albums.
The final new offering from Heart of Chicago Vol. II was the James Pankow and Greg O’Connor-penned “Show Me a Sign.” The song seems to come at a time of increased writing output for Pankow; the longtime trombonist and songwriter who also wrote “The Only One” on Vol. I. The one-time hitmaker for Chicago hadn’t had a single released since “Alive Again” off of Hot Streets nearly 20 years earlier. It was another indication of how he and Robert Lamm had been pushed to the background during the ’80s and ’90s.
Of the four songs released on the two greatest-hits albums, “Show Me a Sign” is my third favorite. Only “Here in My Heart” would rank lower. When the songs were initially released, I was excited to hear new Chicago music, but this song seemed to have more in common with Twenty 1 and Chicago 19, than it did with what I had heard on bootleg recordings of Stone of Sisyphus.
“Show Me a Sign” follows a familiar formula of focusing on the alternating vocals of Bill Champlin and Jason Scheff. It’s not a surprise, as vocally the two complemented each other well during their tenures with Chicago. The horns are an integral part of the arrangement, which would be expected in a Pankow-written piece but the song itself lacks the lyrical maturity I would expect at this stage in Chicago’s career.
At this point in pop music, the boy-band phenomena was sweeping the world and honestly the lyrics and arrangement would have fit NSYNC or the Backstreet Boys perfectly. The lyrics hint at a younger love, while the poppy groove and harmonies would have been a good fit for the multiple singers associated with those groups.
It’s not that “Show Me a Sign” is a bad song; it’s just that when compared to “The Only One” or “All Roads Lead to You,” it wasn’t the best example of where Chicago was at that moment.
- Chicago, “90 Degrees and Freezing” from ‘Chicago XXX’ (2006): Saturdays in the Park - October 23, 2021
- Chicago, “Show Me a Sign” from ‘Heart of Chicago Vol. II’ (1998): Saturdays in the Park - August 14, 2021
- Chicago, “Sophisticated Lady” from ‘Night & Day: Big Band’ (1995): Saturdays in the Park - May 29, 2021
