Songfacts®:

• Tower Of Power was extant for 50 years when they released their 25th album, Soul Side Of Town, in 2018. Their early years were spent honing their skills in the gritty clubs around Oakland in areas like they describe on this song, the album's title track.
  
  "It's about that area of town," founding member Emilio Castillo said in a Songfacts interview. "The dark-side-of-the-moon area of the town where all the barbecue joints are and where the drug dealers are and where the down-to-earth, blue collar people are. That was the vibe we were going for."
• Castillo wrote this song with a journalist named Leo Sacks, who also does reissues for Sony. It was written about 10 years before it was recorded, as getting everyone in the band together to make an album is always a challenge.
• Ray Greene sang lead on this track, but by the time the album was released, he had joined Santana. Marcus Scott replaced him in Tower Of Power and sang on some of the other tracks on Soul Side Of Town. Tower Of Power wasn't pleased when Santana stole away their frontman, but the bands have lots of history and goodwill: Both are from the Bay area in California, and Santana championed ToP early on, bringing them on tour in the early '70s.