“Gimme Some Lovin’” by the Spencer Davis Group

A pop-rock perfect 10 from Steve Winwood and company.

It's the end of the week, and I want to send everyone off into the weekend with the best vibes possible. That’s why the Daily Music Picks newsletter features a weekly segment called Fun Song Fridays! Regardless of era, genre, or style, the criterion is simple: it must deliver the joy and excitement we all need in our lives.

You can access the entire Fun Song Fridays archive here. While you’re at it, add the companion playlist to your favorite streaming platform.

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Hello! 😊👋

Welcome to a new edition of the Best Music of All Time newsletter!

Today’s music pick is one of the catchiest songs of all time, conceived by one of the 20th century’s most mercurial talents.

Genre: Rock, Pop

Label: United Artists

Release Date: October 28, 1966

Vibe: 💯

Here’s a weird, potentially personal question: Do you remember what your greatest accomplishment was when you were 17 years old?

Maybe you were the most popular kid at your high school. Or the most athletic. Or the most artistically inclined. Or the most likely to crush it as a debate team member. I was none of those, which isn’t meant to be self-effacing or modest. I was just a normal teenager who hadn’t necessarily done anything of spectacular note yet. It’s normal. I was only 17.

If you want to talk about impressive accomplishments before hitting the legal drinking age, consider the early career of Steve Winwood. At 14, he became the lead singer and keyboardist for the Spencer Davis Group, alongside his brother Muff, the eponymous Davis on guitar, and Pete York behind the drum kit. By 16, the group had released their first single and, a year later, already had hit singles like “Keep on Running” and “Somebody Help Me” under their belt. But Winwood’s first major songwriting coup came in 1967 with “Gimme Some Lovin’,” which cracked the Top 10 in several countries, including the US, UK, Australia, Ireland, and Canada.

According to those who were in the room at the time, the song came together literally in minutes. Muff Winwood with more:

“We started to mess about with riffs, and it must have been eleven o'clock in the morning. We hadn't been there half an hour, and this idea just came. We thought, bloody hell, this sounds really good. We fitted it all together and by about twelve o'clock, we had the whole song. Steve had been singing 'Gimme, gimme some loving' – you know, just yelling anything, so we decided to call it that. We worked out the middle eight and then went to a cafe that's still on the corner down the road.

[Manager Chris] Blackwell came to see how we were going on, to find our equipment set up and us not there, and he storms into the cafe, absolutely screaming, 'How can you do this?' he screams. Don't worry, we said. We were all really confident. We took him back, and said, how's this for half an hour's work, and we knocked off 'Gimme Some Lovin' and he couldn't believe it. We cut it the following day and everything about it worked. That very night we played a North London club and tried it out on the public. It went down a storm. We knew we had another No. 1.”

At age 17, Steve Winwood was officially the author of a transcendent pop/rock track. Not bad for a baby-faced genius.

👉 Don’t forget to click the album image to stream the album on your favorite platform 👈