NEW CHICAGO SONG - Old Outtake Demo

A love song for Valentine's Day

Before I get into the post, some news.

Listen to my interview on the Working Class Audio podcast HERE.

The fine folks at Tom Petty Radio on Sirius XM are spinning “Fading Fast.” Listen for it this morning (Tuesday, 2/14/23) during the 8 am hour PT on Mark Felsot’s morning show and again Friday, 2/17/23, from 3-7 pm PT on David Fricke’s show.

And now, without further ado, here’s “New Chicago Song.”

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For Valentine’s Day, it’s only fitting that I post a good old-fashioned love song. Heck, this newsletter is called Love Songs Etc, so it’s about time I post one.

“New Chicago Song” was written in a hotel room in—yep, you guessed it—Chicago. I can’t for the life of me recall the other Chicago song that came before this one that prompted me to call this one new.

This sweet little number was written for my girlfriend at the time, Elaine Summers. She’s now my wife. We lived up to the song’s wish to stay in love. In fact, we just celebrated thirty years together. We’ve been married for fifteen.

Many of you know that Elaine is a member of my backing band, The Sinners, so she was out on the road with me most of the time. (What a blessing.) This song was most likely written during one of my solo trips. It might have been during my acoustic tour with John Doe, Glen Phillips, and Steve Poltz in 1998. That’s my best guess, anyway.

Elaine and I met on January 7, 1993, at the grand opening party for The Living Room, an intimate club above the legendary Portland venue La Luna. I had just moved to town a few days prior.

I almost met her the very night I arrived. I was renting a room in the house of drummer Greg Williams who played on and toured behind my debut album Necktie Second. Greg’s brother, Brent, was working up bass parts in the living room for a gig that night with none other than Elaine. He invited me to the show. I declined since I already had plans to go to an open mic night at a club around the corner.

Elaine attended the party with her bosses, Sally Custer and Steve Reichman of Showman Presents, a local concert promoter. They were keen to set her up with a colleague. Lucky for me, she had no interest in the guy. Not her type at all. She spotted me across the room and found an opportunity to ask my friend about me. “That’s Pete Droge. He’s a singer-songwriter from Seattle. Just moved to town. You wanna meet him?”

Well, meet we did, and we hit it off right away. Once the party wound down, we made our way to another bar for cheap well drinks. Then, at closing time, we headed to her place, where we stayed up all night listening to music. I played her my new demo.¹ And she played me her music along with her favorite song, “Love is Gonna Come My Way” by the great Warren Pash.² “One of these days, love is gonna come my way.” Well, love came both of our ways that night.

Celebrating our 7-month anniversary in the very spot where we met.

I stayed the night and never left. I continued to pay rent at Greg’s place for a while but never slept there again. It wasn’t long before Elaine and I officially moved in together. We rented a house near Reed College that became our practice space and party central.

I invited Elaine to join me on backing vocals at gigs around town. We played a bunch of really cool shows. We opened for BB King, Johnny Cash, Lucinda Williams, Rickie Lee Jones, and Warren Zevon,³ among others. We even flew to San Fransisco to play two unannounced warm-up shows with Neil Young and Booker T & the MGs! I’ll post about that trip another time.

We played a showcase together at South by Southwest, and soon I signed my record deal with Rick Rubin’s American Recordings. She sang back up on the album and even played the famous cowbell on the hit song “If You Don’t Love Me.” The following year, when it came time to hit the road, it was only natural for her to join my touring band.

Elaine has been an invaluable contributor to my music over the years. She’s been a co-producer on albums, executive music producer on movie scores, and has co-written many songs, including some of my most well-known ones. Without Elaine, “Going Whichever Way the Wind Blows,” “Under the Waves,” and “Two of the Lucky Ones” would not be what they are.

In addition to all that, Elaine has been my life partner. She’s been at my side through thick and thin. For that, I’m eternally grateful. Happy Valentine’s Day, Elaine.

And happy Valentine’s Day to you, my dear readers.

Peace & Love Songs,

Pete

PS: Paid subscribers can download “New Chicago Song” by visiting my “Rarities” page HERE.

1. I had recently recorded The McCready Demos. Stay tuned for a future post all about that.

2. I recently unearthed two unreleased tracks I produced for Warren Pash 25 years ago. Those will be released this year. I’ll keep you posted.

3. Years later, Zevon would cover “If You Don’t Love Me” in his live show, and I’d get the chance to perform it with him. I’ll have to try and dig up a bootleg and post about that another time.