"Lake Shore Drive" | |
---|---|
Single by Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah | |
from the album Lake Shore Drive | |
B-side | "Snow Queen" |
Released | 1972 (Bang Records) Reissued 1973 (Snow Queen) |
Recorded | December 31, 1971 |
Studio | Paragon Recording Studios, Chicago |
Genre | Rock |
Length |
|
Label |
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Songwriter(s) | Skip Haynes |
Producer(s) | Scott Gibbs |
"Lake Shore Drive" is a song written by Skip Haynes of the Chicago-based rock group Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah, initially recorded on December 31, 1971, and released on their 1973 Lake Shore Drive album on Big Foot Records. The song is an homage to the famed lakefront highway in Chicago. Despite the fact that "LSD" had long been an abbreviation for the Drive, many people thought the song referred to the hallucinogenic drug lysergic acid diethylamide. Numerous fans of the song and residents of Chicago believe the song paints an accurate musical picture of living and driving in downtown Chicago. [1]
Skip Haynes himself recounts "We started recording the song on December 31, 1971 and finished it on New Years Day 1972".
Despite the fact that lyricist Haynes maintains that the song is not about LSD, the line "Just slippin' on by on L.S.D. / Friday night, trouble bound" has been construed as a double entendre of both driving on Lake Shore Drive and tripping on the drug.
Other references include the lines "Pretty blue lights along the way / Helping you right on by," which some think refers to the blue lights of the Chicago Police Department squad cars that patrol Lake Shore Drive. Another theory for the meaning of the "blue lights" may be the blue lighting of the reversible lanes that used to run down Lake Shore Drive, and have since been removed. Still others remember that, at the time of the song's release Mich Aliotta mentioned that the "...pretty blue lights..." "...shining with a heavenly grace..." were those in the Beehive search light atop the famed Metropolitan Tower on Michigan Ave, directly across Grant Park from Lake Shore Drive. "From rags on up to riches" denoted driving from the south side to the north side. Lyricist Skip Haynes says, "I was a north sider so I usually was 'runnin' south on LSD' looking for a good time." [2] Other lyrics in the song illustrate the physical features of the road and its surroundings: "It starts up north from Hollywood" refers to West Hollywood Avenue, which, running eastbound, becomes Lake Shore Drive, and "A ten-minute drive from the Gold Coast back / Makes you sure you’re pleasure bound" refers to the Gold Coast, a strip of affluent residential housing, hotels, university campuses, and office buildings along the Drive. "Concrete mountains rearing up / Throwing shadows just about five" refers to Chicago's downtown skyscrapers casting their shadows across the Drive as the sun sets in the late afternoon.
"A ten-minute drive from the Gold Coast back / Makes you sure you’re pleasure bound" is described as "The thing to do when going to clubs (Sgt. Peppers, Sitzmark, Barnaby's, Beaver's etc,) on State Street and Rush Street during the late sixties and early seventies was to double (or triple) park in front of the club and go in to hit on the waitresses and listen to the first set from bands like Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah, Aorta, Big Twist, Illinois Speed Press, Mason Proffit, and CTA. When the set was over (the club that inspired the song was Beavers on State Street), one would pile into the car, turn right on Oak Street, turn left at the Drive, shoot the loop at Foster Avenue, then back down to Oak Street, left on State Street, make an illegal U-turn on State and re-double park (with the first ticket you got still under your windshield wiper) in front of Beaver's then go back into the club. This was the perfect amount of time to get high and be peaking just as you walked in and got a drink from the waitress as the band came on for the second set. That's it." [3]
When the blizzard of 2011 hit Chicago, many motorists leaving the city were stranded on Lake Shore Drive as weather conditions deteriorated. [4] Within days, Skip Haynes had reworked the lyrics of the song "Lake Shore Drive" and released it as "Snowed on LSD". [5]
Another variation of the song for the holiday season, "Christmas on LSD", was also released on Haynes's website, lakeshoredrivemusic.com. [6]
The song was featured in the 2017 film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 , and was further included on the film's soundtrack album. [7] The song also features in the 2022 film Don't Make Me Go .
Patrick Stump, lead singer of the band Fall Out Boy, performed a live voice/acoustic piano cover of the song at Wrigley Field on 21 June 2023 as part of the opening night of their "So Much for (Tour)Dust" world tour. Fall Out Boy came out of the Chicago hardcore scene in the early 2000s. Stump introduced the cover by telling the crowd: "what am I going to do at Wrigley that means something, y'know? So I thought ... this isn't a song that everybody'll know, but the people that know it will appreciate it."
The Chicago "L" is the rapid transit system serving the city of Chicago and some of its surrounding suburbs in the U.S. state of Illinois. Operated by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), it is the fourth-largest rapid transit system in the United States in terms of total route length, at 102.8 miles (165.4 km) long as of 2014, and the third-busiest rapid transit system in the United States after the New York City Subway and the Washington Metro. As of January 2024, the "L" had 1,480 rail cars operating across eight different routes on 224.1 miles of track. CTA trains make about 1,888 trips each day servicing 146 train stations. In 2023, the system had 117,447,000 rides, or about 400,000 per weekday in the second quarter of 2024.
LSD is lysergic acid diethylamide, a psychedelic drug.
Michigan Avenue is a north-south street in Chicago that runs at 100 east on the Chicago grid. The northern end of the street is at DuSable Lake Shore Drive on the shore of Lake Michigan in the Gold Coast Historic District. The street's southern terminus is at Sibley Boulevard in the southern suburb of Dolton, but like many other Chicago streets, it exists in several disjointed segments.
The Green Line is a rapid transit line in Chicago, Illinois, operated by the Chicago Transit Authority (CTA) as part of the Chicago "L" system. It is the only completely elevated route in the "L" system. All other routes may have various combinations of elevated, subway, street level, or freeway median sections.
Lake Shore Drive is a semi-limited access expressway that runs alongside the shoreline of Lake Michigan and its adjacent parkland and beaches in Chicago, Illinois. Except for the portion north of Foster Avenue, the Drive is designated part of U.S. Highway 41. A portion of the highway on the Outer Drive Bridge and its bridge approaches is multilevel.
Lincoln Park is a 1,208-acre (489-hectare) park along Lake Michigan on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. Named after US President Abraham Lincoln, it is the city's largest public park and stretches for seven miles (11 km) from Grand Avenue, on the south, to near Ardmore Avenue on the north, just north of the DuSable Lake Shore Drive terminus at Hollywood Avenue. Two museums and a zoo are located in the oldest part of the park between North Avenue and Diversey Parkway in the eponymous neighborhood. Further to the north, the park is characterized by parkland, beaches, recreational areas, nature reserves, and harbors. To the south, there is a more narrow strip of beaches east of Lake Shore Drive, almost to downtown. With 20 million visitors per year, Lincoln Park is the second-most-visited city park in the United States, behind Manhattan's Central Park.
Roads and expressways in Chicago summarizes the main thoroughfares and the numbering system used in Chicago and its surrounding suburbs.
Wacker Drive is a major multilevel street in Chicago, Illinois, running along the south side of the main branch and the east side of the south branch of the Chicago River in the Loop. The vast majority of the street is double-decked; the upper level is intended for local traffic, and the lower level for through-traffic and trucks serving buildings on the road. It is sometimes cited as a precursor to the freeway, though when it was built, the idea was that pleasure vehicles would use the upper level. It is the only street in the city that is prefixed with all four cardinal directions, albeit on different parts of its route. The drive is named for early 20th century Chicago businessman and city planner Charles H. Wacker.
Randolph Street is a street in Chicago. It runs east–west through the Chicago Loop, carrying westbound traffic west from Michigan Avenue across the Chicago River on the Randolph Street Bridge, interchanging with the Kennedy Expressway (I-90/I-94), and continuing west. It serves as the northern boundary of Grant Park and the Chicago Landmark Historic Michigan Boulevard District. Several large theaters, as well as city and state government buildings are on and adjacent to Randolph. Metra's Millennium Station is located under Randolph Street.
Millennium Station is a major commuter rail terminal in the Loop (downtown), Chicago. It is the northern terminus of the Metra Electric District to Chicago's southern suburbs, and the western terminus of the South Shore Line to Gary and South Bend, Indiana.
Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah was an American rock group from the 1970s.
Mitchell A. "Mitch" Aliotta was an American vocalist and bassist, who was involved in the psychedelic soul movement in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Aliotta played bass guitar in Rotary Connection, and later formed the trio Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah. He was also a member of the Chicago based band The Proper Strangers. Aliotta died of complications from diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in 2015, at the age of 71.
Oak Street Beach is located near Oak Street on 1100 North Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, Illinois, on the shore of Lake Michigan.
Chicago Avenue is a major east–west street in Chicago, Illinois that runs at 800 north from 385 east to 5968 west in the Chicago street address system from which point it enters the suburbs and goes into several different suburban address systems. It originates at the shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Shore Drive in the Gold Coast neighborhood in the Near North Side community area of Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States, and runs west to 17th Avenue, where it terminates a few feet north of Lake Street in Melrose Park, IL. This is a distance of approximately 12.2 miles (19.6 km).
North Avenue is a major east–west street in Chicago, Illinois, and its western suburbs. Starting at St. Charles's eastern border with West Chicago, its name changes from Main Street to North Avenue, just east of the Kane/DuPage county line. From there, it travels straight east, carrying Illinois Route 64 until LaSalle Drive in Chicago. Illinois Route 64 then continues north onto LaSalle Drive for a very short distance until ending at U.S. Route 41, while North Avenue continues east for less than one-half mile, changing its name to North Boulevard at Clark Street, and then continuing until its termination in a cul-de-sac at 200 East, just west of Lake Shore Drive. From Illinois Route 43 to its east end, North Avenue is within the city limits of Chicago.
U.S. Route 41 (US 41) in the U.S. state of Illinois runs north from the Indiana border beneath the Chicago Skyway on Indianapolis Boulevard to the Wisconsin border north of the northern terminus of the Tri-State Tollway with Interstate 94. It is the only north–south U.S. Route to travel through a significant portion of the city of Chicago, carrying Lake Shore Drive through the central portion of the city along the lakefront. US 41 in Illinois is 64.81 miles (104.30 km) in length.
Lake Shore Drive is a roadway in Chicago, Illinois.
Lake Shore Drive is the third album by Chicago-based rock group Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah, released in 1973 on the Big Foot Records label.
The Lake Street Elevated, also known as the Lake branch, is a 8.75 mi (14.08 km) long branch of the Chicago "L" which is located west of the Chicago Loop and serves the Green Line for its entire length, as well as the Pink Line east of Ashland Avenue. As of February 2013, the branch serves an average of 27,217 passengers each weekday. It serves the Near West Side, East Garfield Park, West Garfield Park, and Austin neighborhoods of Chicago, as well as the suburbs Oak Park and Forest Park. It owes its name to Lake Street, the street that the branch overlooks for 6.25 mi (10.06 km) before continuing its route straight west, adjacent to South Boulevard, towards the terminus at Harlem/Lake.
"Rats on up to riches" denoted driving from the south side to the north side. I was a north sider so I usually was "runnin' south on LSD" looking for a good time.
"The thing to do when going to clubs (Sgt. Peppers, Sitzmark, Barnaby's, Beaver's etc,) on State Street and Rush Street during the late sixties and the early seventies was to double (or triple) park in front of the club and go in to hit on the waitresses and listen to the first set from bands like (Aliotta Haynes Jeremiah, Aorta, Big Twist, the Illinois Speed Press, Mason Profitt, CTA etc.). When the set was over (the club that inspired the song was Beavers on State Street), you would pile into the car, turn right on Oak Street, turn left at the Drive, shoot the loop at Foster Avenue, then back down to Oak Street, left on State Street, make an illegal U-turn on State and re-double park (with the first ticket you got still under your windshield wiper) in front of Beaver's then go back into the club.
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