• Writer: Robert Lamm
• Producer: James William Guercio
• Recorded: September 1971 at CBS Studios in New York City
• Released: August 1972
• Players: Peter Cetera–vocals, bass
  Terry Kath–guitar, vocals
  Robert Lamm–keyboards, vocals
  Danny Seraphine–drums, vocals
  Lee Loughnane–trumpet, vocals
  James Pankow–trombone, vocals
  Walt Parazaider–sax, vocals
• Album: Chicago V (Columbia, 1972)
• Also On: Chicago IX–Chicago’s Greatest Hits (Columbia, 1975)
  The Heart of Chicago 1967-1997, Volume I (Reprise, 1997)
• “Saturday In The Park” was Chicago‘s highest-charting single up to that point, hitting Number Three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart shortly before the release of Chicago V.
• The song, one of eight written by keyboardist Robert Lamm for the album, was inspired by a walk Lamm took the previous Fourth of July, recording his thoughts and observations into a song.
• The song’s success brought a new audience to Chicago, one that wasn’t familiar with the more experimental music it had made during the previous two-and-a-half years, while some older Chicago fans were put off by the group’s sudden ascension in the pop market. “We became more singles oriented,” remembers drummer Danny Seraphine. “That in itself made the songs shorter. We got sick and tired of our songs getting chopped up and decided to try and condense things. I don’t know whether that was good or bad. It worked to a certain degree, but we may have left a little bit of our artistic integrity behind.”
• But Seraphine also felt that “musically, we were still doing some things that were turning people’s heads.”
• Chicago V was the first of five consecutive Number One albums for the group on the Billboard 200 chart.
• Chicago V was also the first single-disc album released by the band since its debut in 1969. Its first three studio albums were all double-record sets, while the fourth, Chicago At Carnegie Hall, was a whopping four-disc collection.
• It was also the last Chicago album to be recorded entirely in New York City.

FAST FORWARD:

• With only four exceptions, all of Chicago’s album titles have been Roman numerals corresponding to which number the album is in the band’s career.
• Guitarist Terry Kath died on January 23, 1978 after accidentally shooting himself.
• Singer-bassist Peter Cetera left the group in 1985 to pursue a solo career.

Drummer Danny Seraphine left in 1989. He now plays in a Chicago tribute band called California Transit Authority, or CTA.