Let’s Live For Today – The Grass Roots | Top 40 Chart Performance, Story and Song Meaning
Chart Performance: Pop (#8); 1967
Story Behind The Song By Ed Osborne
The first single bearing the Grass Roots name was an actually a P.F. Sloan/Steve Barri studio creation featuring Sloan on lead vocal: Where Were You When I Needed You which peaked at #28 in July of 1966.
Such success created demand for live performances so Sloan and Barri recruited the 13th Floor from Los Angeles to “become” the Grass Roots.
The ex-13th Floor went from unknowns to stars when their first single shot into the Top 10. Unlike the first three Sloan/Barri-penned singles, Let’s Live For Today originated as Piangi Con Me: a hit song recorded by a British Invasion-era group that found success in Italy as the Rokes.
The Rokes also released an English language version titled Let’s Live For Today in their native England. With a “sha-la-la-la-la” hook lifted from the Drifters‘ I Count The Tears and an edgier Sloan/Barri arrangement, Let’s Live resonated with the Vietnam War generation in America and established the Grass Roots as a hit-making group.
This content and all Song Meaning articles were created and written by Top 40 Contributing Editor Ed Osborne. © 2024 Ed Osborne. All Rights Reserved. In addition to these song meaning articles, Ed has written our “Year in Music 1960s-1990s” articles.
Produced by:
- P. F. Sloan
- Steve Barri
Lyrics Written by:
- Michael Julien
- Mogol
- David Shapiro
Ed Osborne
Hi. I got my first record at age two and never looked back, spending a decades-long career in radio and the music business. Even after years of reading about and listening to all types of music, I am still fascinated by it. Apart from that, I’m endlessly intrigued by art, nature, and the inner lives of people (and dogs).