After learning guitar at the age of 12, Scaggs met Steve Miller at St. Mark's School of Texas in Dallas. In 1959, he became the vocalist for Miller's band The Marksmen. The pair later attended the University of Wisconsin together, playing in blues bands like The Ardells and The Fabulous Knight Trains. Leaving school, Scaggs briefly left Texas to join the burgeoning rhythm and blues scene in London. After singing in bands such as The Wigs and Mother Earth, he recorded his first solo album Boz in 1965, which was not a commercial success. He traveled to Sweden as a solo performer and did a brief stint with the band The Other Side with fellow American Jack Downing and Brit Mac MacLeod.
Returning to the US, Scaggs promptly headed for the booming psychedelic music center of San Francisco in 1967. Linking up with Steve Miller again, he appeared on the Steve Miller Band's first two albums Children of the Future and Sailor, which won over critical reviews. After being spotted by Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, Scaggs secured a solo contract with Atlantic Records in 1968. Despite good reviews, his first Atlantic album was met with lukewarm sales, as were followup albums on Columbia Records. In 1976, he linked up with session musicians who would later form Toto and recorded his smash album Silk Degrees. The album reached number 2 on the US charts and number 1 in a number of countries across the world, spawning three hit singles: "Lowdown", "Lido Shuffle", and "What Can I Say", as well as the MOR standard "We're All Alone", later a hit for Rita Coolidge. A sellout world tour followed, but his follow-up album, the 1977 Down Two Then Left, lacked the cohesion of Silk Degrees.
Scaggs' 1980 album Middle Man would spawn two top 20 hits, "Breakdown Dead Ahead" and "Jojo," and Scaggs would enjoy two more hits over 1980 and 1981 ("Look What You've Done to Me" from the Urban Cowboy soundtrack, and "Miss Sun" from a greatest hits set).
Scaggs continued to record and tour sporadically throughout the 1980s and 1990s, although he semi-retired from the music business and turned owner of the San Francisco nightclub Slim's. His lengthy hiatus from the music industry slowed his chart career down dramatically.
Scaggs recorded Other Roads in 1988, took another hiatus, and then came back in 1994 with Some Change. In the late 190s he released Come On Home, an album of blues, and My Time, an anthology. He garnered good reviews with Dig, although the CD, which was released on September 11, 2001, was lost in the post-911 melée. In May, 2003, Scaggs released But Beautiful, a collection of jazz standards that debuted at number 1 on the jazz charts.
In 2013 he released the album Memphis
I Should Care
Boz Scaggs Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I should go around weeping
I should care
I should go without sleeping
Strangely enough I sleep well
'Cept for a dream or two
But then I count my sheep well
So I should care
I shouldn't let it upset me
I should care
But it just doesn't get me
Maybe I won't find someone
As lovely as you
But I should care
And I do
So I should care
I shouldn't let it upset me
I should care
But it just doesn't get me
Maybe I won't find someone
As lovely as you
But I should care
And I do
The song "I Should Care" by Boz Scaggs is a hauntingly beautiful lament of unrequited love. The singer is admitting that he should care about the fact that his love is not returned, but he can't help feeling numb towards it. He should be crying and feeling miserable but he's not. Scaggs is talking to himself, reminding himself that he SHOULD be affected by this unfulfilled love, telling himself he should be upset but he just can't seem to feel it. He admits that he sleeps well except for a dream or two, but as he counts his sheep, he realizes how easily they can lie you to sleep. The metaphor of sheep counting is a powerful one that helps to convey the numbness and insensitivity of the singer's emotions towards his love.
What's interesting about this song is that it was actually written in 1944 by Sammy Cahn, Paul Weston and Axel Stordahl. It was originally recorded by Frank Sinatra and has since been covered by many artists, including Sarah Vaughan, Dinah Washington and Chet Baker. Boz Scaggs' version is unique, as he adds his own personal touch to the song with his soulful voice and bluesy guitar riffs.
Line by Line Meaning
I should care
I should be concerned
I should go around weeping
I should show my sadness outwardly
I should go without sleeping
I should be kept up at night
Strangely enough I sleep well
Oddly, sleep comes easy to me
'Cept for a dream or two
Except for the occasional dream
But then I count my sheep well
But I can still sleep if I count sheep
Funny how sheep can lie you to sleep
It's interesting how counting sheep can put you to sleep
Maybe I won't find someone
Perhaps I won't meet another person
As lovely as you
As wonderful as you are
And I do
But I am concerned
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, HANOVER MUSIC CORPORATION, CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: Paul Weston, Sammy Cahn, A Stordahl
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind