“Dock of the Bay” is so universal, about trying to find the beauty in life despite the hopelessness and despair we all have dealt with. Knowing these details and not thinking something much deeper was involved might serve to shatter the song’s mystique for some of us. ‘Dock of the Bay’ was exactly that: ‘I left my home in Georgia, headed for the Frisco Bay,’ it was all about him going out to San Francisco to perform.” Sittin’ on the dock of the bay.’ I just took that…we just sat down and I just kind of learned the changes that he was kind of running over and I finished the lyrics…Otis didn’t really write about himself but I did. And that’s about all he had: ‘I watch the ships come in and I watch them roll away again. “He had rented a boathouse or stayed out at a boathouse or something that’s when he got the idea of watching the ships coming in the bay there. “He had been in San Francisco doing the Fillore,” Cropper recalled.

In an interview on NPR’s Fresh Air, Cropper explained how he and Redding came to write the song. He took these ideas back to Memphis, where he and collaborator/producer Steve Cropper ended up making one of the most famous soul records of all time. “Dock of the Bay” was based on a few thoughts and lines Redding came up with during some time he spent sitting and watching the ocean in California.

I’m talking about Otis Redding’s classic (“Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay.”

It became an anthem of sorts for people of all colors all over the world, both the truly downtrodden and those of us who just feel like we are. It wasn’t written as a protest song, but it almost sounds like it could have been one during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s.

Sittin on dock of the bay lyrics