Al Jarreau – Mornin'
1983
109K Likes
Best comments
1.“During the '80s, every dentist's office in America had this playing!”
More comments
- 2.“Wow, this really does sound like a four-minute hug.”
- 3.“My son was singing this at age 3, his little voice rising on the big high note. Next month he turns 44, and I'm going to send him this video – it will mean so much to him, as it does to me.”
The story
Al Jarreau strolls through a sunny day where nothing can go wrong, and the world around him is a cartoon. The video for Mornin' is mostly animation, with Jarreau as the one live-action man in it, trading moments with objects, animals and drawn characters along the way. Cartoon Brew later dug it up as a pre-Roger Rabbit music video, a snapshot of what counted as technically acceptable for mixing cartoons and live action in the early '80s.
The song started life as an instrumental. David Foster and Jay Graydon wrote it for Foster's own solo album, then Jarreau wrote words over it and sang it, with Toto's Jeff Porcaro on drums and Graydon producing. It was the first single from Jarreau, his sixth studio album, and it climbed to number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100, number two on the adult contemporary chart and number six on R&B. The album became his third straight number one on Billboard's jazz chart and picked up four Grammy nominations.
A seven-time Grammy winner singing about a morning so good he can't stop grinning. Yacht rock, in cartoon form.
