1988 · Behind the Songs
A Diane Warren ballad about watching a former love move on.
The recording in context
By 1988, Peter Cetera had left for a solo career, and Chicago — now fronted by Bill Champlin and Jason Scheff — needed a hit to prove the band could thrive without its signature voice. Songwriter Diane Warren supplied “Look Away,” a ballad of exquisite torment: a man watches his ex with her new love and tells himself to look away. The single became Chicago’s third American number one, proving the ballad machine ran deeper than any one singer.
Listen closely
The tension is the whole song. Listen to the verses: restrained, almost conversational, the narrator trying to sound reasonable about something unreasonable. Then the chorus detonates — “look away” becomes a cry, not advice, and the band behind him swells to match. Scheff’s vocal doesn’t imitate Cetera; it has its own wounded edge, younger and rawer, and the song is better for it.
Notice the production’s late-eighties fingerprints: gated drums, glassy keyboards, a mix that gleams like a showroom. But underneath, the song’s bones are classic Chicago — a melody that could have been played by the horns in 1972, dressed for 1988. The band’s past and present shake hands here, just as they did on “Hard to Say I’m Sorry.”
“Look Away” closes our Chicago collection — five songs, two eras, one horn section, and proof that a great band is bigger than any lineup.