Songfacts®:

• "Everybody's Everything" was written by group leader Carlos Santana and sung by keyboard player Gregg Rolie. Musically, it's a tight 3:31, with the 7-piece band augmented by the Tower of Power horn section. Lyrically, the theme is one Carlos returned to often: enlightenment through music:
  
  Let your head be free
  Turn the wisdom key
  Find it naturally see your lucky to be
  Sing it now
• This song, like most of the others on the Santana III album, does not have the song title in the lyrics. Fans refer it as "Time For You To All Get Down." >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Jim - Oxnard, CA
• The guitar solo was performed by Neal Schon, not Carlos Santana. Schon joined Santana for this album, and formed Journey two years later. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Steven McGuire - Whittier, CA
• The appearance by the Tower of Power horn section marked the first time Santana used guest musicians. It was also just the second time Tower of Power farmed out their horns (the first being "Funkie Jim" by Big Brother And The Holding Company) - something they would do often over the next 50 years.
  
  "I think the rhythmic horns on the verses really made the song bounce, since Santana was such a rhythmic band," ToP leader Emilio Castillo told Songfacts. "You can tell how excited Santana was by how loud the horns are in the mix. Carlos had called us in the middle of the night saying, 'We recorded this song and we think it would sound good with your horns on it. Would you guys come over to the studio?'
  
  We were all hanging out partying and thought that would be a lot of fun, so we drove right over and quickly made up some parts. It was mixed and released within one week and everyone was marveling that Santana had these cool horns on his new single. All the DJs were saying, 'That's Santana's new single with Tower of Power horns!'
  
  The sessions started rolling in after that. We did a lot of recording with Santana over the next few years and played live with him as well, but 'Everybody's Everything' is the song people always remember about our collaborations with Carlos."
• This was the first single from the Santana III album, and a solid hit, going to #12 in the US. The next single was "No One To Depend On," which went to #36.
  
  Soon after the album was released, original members David Brown (bass) and Mike Carabello (percussion) left the band, and Santana stopped performing live for about a year. Their next album, Caravanserai, appeared at the end of 1972. With a jazz sound, it bumped the band down a notch in popularity, and the hits dried up. Santana stayed together but went through lots of ups and downs, their apex being the 1999 Supernatural album.
• The groove was lifted from the 1967 song "Karate" by a Pennsylvania group called The Emperor's (with the misplaced apostrophe). The writers of that song, Milton Brown and Tyrone Moss, are credited as composers on "Everybody's Everything" along with Carlos Santana, so apparently a deal was worked out - a very early version of clearing a sample (or at least an interpolation).