"Are You Going With Me?" is a song by the Pat Metheny Group, composed by Metheny and keyboardist Lyle Mays. It was originally recorded in October 1981 as part of the band's third album, Offramp.
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Background and production
The guitarist wrote in the Pat Metheny Songbook that the main idea for, "Are You Going With Me?" came to him while he was walking in the woods. He went back to the studio, typed it out on a computer, and worked with Mays to develop and complete the rest.
The song features a Latin inflection with simple basic chord scheme played over a "gently percolating bass vamp." It also features two solos: the first by Mays, a "synthed-harmonica melody" and a longer second solo by Metheny, played on a Roland GR-300. Metheny's sound on the Roland (which he also plays when the song is performed live) has been compared with wind instruments such as the flute, but most commonly with the trumpet.
A music video was produced by Robin Young in Los Angeles, prior to Young's move back to Boston to work for WHDH (TV).
Reception and influence
At the time of the song's recording, Latin American and especially Brazilian music had begun to influence jazz in the United States, and when Brazilian musicians such as Vasconcelos came to play with American artists, this influence, in the case of the Pat Metheny Group, became overt. The, "Brazilian" quality of, "Are You Going With Me?" is frequently noted; and it has been considered by some to be, "obviously Samba-based".
The song was nominated for Best Instrumental Composition at the 1983 Grammy Awards; the Boston Globe added, "It's also our choice for the best fusion ballad of the year." Many critics continue to praise it: The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music calls it "wonderfully contagious and arresting"; the Berliner Morgenpost, in 2010, called it a "herzergreifende Standard".
American jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, who first heard "Are You Going With Me?" when he was 13, described listening to it as "one of maybe five or six life-changing moments for me as a listening musician." The Los Angeles Lakers used it as background music for a slow-motion highlight film after winning an NBA championship.
The song is "an enduring set piece" still being played. In the 2000s, Polish singer Anna Maria Jopek performed it with Pat Metheny as part of her album Upojenie.