Spinning Wheel (song)
"Spinning Wheel" is a song from 1968 by the band Blood, Sweat & Tears, written by Canadian lead vocalist David Clayton-Thomas and appearing on their eponymous album.
"Spinning Wheel"
"More and More"
May 1969
October 9, 1968
4:05 (Stereophonic album version)
3:26 (Original Quadraphonic album version)
2:39 (single edit)
"Lean on Me"
March 1969
2:35
David Clayton-Thomas
Phil Wright
Released as a single in 1969, "Spinning Wheel" peaked at No.2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in July of that year, remaining in the runner-up position for three weeks.[1] "Spinning Wheel" was kept out of the No.1 position by both "The Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet" by Henry Mancini and "In the Year 2525" by Zager and Evans.[2] In August of that year, the song topped the Billboard Easy Listening chart for two weeks.[3] It was also a crossover hit, reaching No.45 on the US R&B chart.
"Spinning Wheel" was nominated for three Grammy Awards at the 1970 ceremony, winning in the category Best Instrumental Arrangement. The arranger for the song was the band's saxophonist, Fred Lipsius. It was nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year; the album won the Grammy for Album of the Year.
Composition[edit]
Clayton-Thomas was quoted as describing the song as being "written in an age when psychedelic imagery was all over lyrics ... it was my way of saying, 'Don't get too caught up, because everything comes full circle'."[3]
In Clayton-Thomas's 2010 autobiography, Blood, Sweat and Tears, he wrote that the Joni Mitchell song The Circle Game inspired some of the lyrics. They lived across the hall from one another in Yorkville, the bohemian rock music epicenter of Toronto similar to Greenwich Village in Manhattan at the same time. He claimed a long-unrequited crush on her. "In later years, our common love for jazz brought us closer together... I was so completely smitten by her that I borrowed a phrase from her song 'The Circle Game,' the line about 'painted ponies,' and used it in my song 'Spinning Wheel.' In 2007 both songs were inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame and I confessed my plagiarism to her. She said she had never even noticed."[4]
The album version ends with the 1815 Austrian tune "O Du Lieber Augustin" ("The More We Get Together" or "Did You Ever See a Lassie?")[5] and drummer Bobby Colomby's comment: "That wasn't too good", followed by laughter from the rest of the group. According to producer James William Guercio this section was inserted at the last minute after the end of the master tape was recorded over accidentally by an engineer at the studio. Most of this section and Lew Soloff's trumpet solo were edited out for the single version. The instrumental break features an eight-bar piano solo which precedes the trumpet solo on the album version. That section was overdubbed with guitar on the single version before the last verse. The quadraphonic mix is presented as the song was originally intended, retaining the guitar solo in the instrumental break from the single version, while the finale (which fades out in this version) is presented uncut as originally recorded before the Austrian tune was added and recorded over for the album version. Alan Rubin sat in on trumpet for Chuck Winfield, who was not able to attend the recording session.