The Little River Band! "Reminiscing!"

I have the Little River Band’s greatest hits CD and my favorite song from this band is ‘Reminiscing”.  I can play this song over and over and over and never get tired of it. The music made such an impact on me when I was 12 (so melodic) but I wouldn’t fully understand the lyrics until I was older. It’s just such a brilliant song.

It was written by the band’s founding member and guitarist, Graeham Goble (initially spelled “Graham” but he later changed it) and was recognized as one of the most frequently played songs in the history of American radio, with more than four million plays to its credit.

The song first appeared on their album Sleeper Catcher in 1978 and Goble had to fight to have it included. Goble states:

"I loved watching old black and white movies, and I always also loved the music of Glenn Miller and Cole Porter, that whole era of writing, and it was my attempt to write a song to depict the romantic era. It came out very quickly, I wrote it in about half an hour. Even though a lot of people think it sounds complicated, on the guitar it's very simple to play. It nearly never got recorded - when the time came to record it, the keyboard player I wanted to use, Peter Jones, was out of town, so we cut the band track with a different keyboard player. It didn't work. A few days later when we tried it again with a different keyboard player, again it didn't work, and the band was losing interest in the song. Just before the album was finished, Peter Jones came back into town, the band and I had an argument because I wanted to give “Reminiscing” a third chance. Peter played on it, we cut it, and finished it, and sent the album to Capitol. Capitol said that they couldn't hear any singles on the album, and didn't know what to release. Five weeks later, someone at Capitol's New York office said 'You're all crazy, “Reminiscing” is a smash.' Capitol put it out, and it just immediately caught on fire, and became our highest chart hit."

"It's quite staggering; you don't realize you've written something like that until it happens, until it's history."

Goble also wrote "Lady" and "Take It Easy On Me".

According to Albert Goldman's biography, John Lennon named "Reminiscing" as one of his favorite songs who listened to it over and over. The legendary Frank Sinatra also regarded the song very highly, saying that it was "the best 1970’s song in the world".

I would agree!