Edit for headphones, December 2021. Otis Redding died in a plane crash on December 10, 1967, a month before this song was released (January 8, 1968) and three days after he recorded it. It was by far his biggest hit and was also the first ever posth…
Edit for headphones, December 2021. Otis Redding died in a plane crash on December 10, 1967, a month before this song was released (January 8, 1968) and three days after he recorded it. It was by far his biggest hit and was also the first ever posthumous number 1 single in the US.
Guitarist Steve Cropper said that Otis stayed at a boathouse (in Sausalito, across the bay from San Francisco), where he got the idea of the ship coming in. That's about all he had: 'I watch the ships come in and I watch them roll away again.' Steve Cropper took that and finished the lyrics.
Redding recorded this with Booker T. & the MG's, the house band for Stax Records.
(SITTIN' ON) THE DOCK OF THE BAY
(Steve Cropper/Otis Redding)
sittin' in the mornin' sun
I'll be sittin' when the evenin' comes
watching the ships roll in
then I watch 'em roll away again, yeah
I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
watchin' the tide roll away, ooh
I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay
wastin' time
I left my home in Georgia
headed for the Frisco Bay
'cause I've had nothin' to live for
it look like nothin's gonna come my way
so I'm just gon' sitt' on the dock of the bay
watchin' the tide roll away, ooh
I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay
wastin' time
looks like nothing's gonna change
everything, still remains the same
I can't do what ten people tell me to do
so I guess I'll remain the same, yes
sittin' here restin' my bones
and this loneliness won't leave me alone, listen
two thousand miles I roam
just to make this dock my home
now I'm just gon' sitt' at the dock of the bay
watchin' the tide roll away, ooh ye
sittin' on the dock of the bay
wastin' time
®© WMG on behalf of Atlantic Records
®© therock&rollingsixties
