Released February 1972 Genre Soul Label Atlantic | Format 7" single Length 4:00
2:41 (7" version) | |
B-side "I've Been Loving You Too Long" | ||
"Day Dreaming" is a soul single by American singer Aretha Franklin. Released from her album Young, Gifted and Black, it spent two weeks at the top of the Hot Soul Singles chart in April 1972 and peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 11 on the Easy Listening singles chart. Billboard ranked it as the No. 61 song for 1972.
Donny Hathaway plays electric piano on the single. Hubert Laws plays the flute on the single. The single version omits the jazzy daydreaming like music, heard in the beginning and the ending of the song, where even the vocals sounded too psychedelic for most radio airplay. It has been rumoured that the song is about Temptations' singer Dennis Edwards. It would be her twelfth number-one soul single while at Atlantic Records and sold more than one million copies.
Cover versions
The song has been covered by Mary J. Blige, Natalie Cole (her final single released before her death), Will Downing, Penny Ford, Michel'le, Corinne Bailey Rae, Tamia, Tweet and Japanese singer Ua. Rapper T.I.'s "Let's Get Away" sampled the song on 2003's Trap Muzik, which was his final single from the album. Rapper Cam'Ron interpolated and covered the song in his single "Daydreaming" from Come Home with Me.