A candlelit plea for dawn—restless, tender, and wise beyond its years.
In the arc of David Cassidy’s early-’70s bloom, Where Is the Morning is not a chart trophy but a quietly luminous album cut: track eight on his 1972 debut solo album Cherish, released on Bell Records and produced by Wes Farrell. The song was not issued as a single in major markets, so it carried no individual chart position on release. Even so, its home LP did the talking—Cherish reached No. 15 on the Billboard 200 and soared to No. 2 in the U.K., while attendant singles like “Cherish” (U.S. No. 9; No. 1 Adult Contemporary) and “Could It Be Forever” (U.S. No. 37; U.K. double-A side to No. 2) announced Cassidy’s arrival as a solo force. Later, “I Am a Clown” became a U.K. Top 3 favorite.
Written by Adam Miller—who also contributed “Blind Hope” and “I Lost My Chance” to the same record—Where Is the Morning forms the third point of a reflective triangle inside Cherish, the place where youthful longing turns into something more adult: patience, doubt, and the ache of time moving too slowly. On paper it’s a two-minute-fifty-three-second pop ballad; in the ear it feels like a long night that refuses to end.
Part of the song’s warmth comes from the players and the room. Cherish was cut in 1971 at Western Recorders in Hollywood with first-call Los Angeles musicians—Hal Blaine on drums, guitars by Larry Carlton, Tommy Tedesco, Louis Shelton, and Dennis Budimir, bass by Max Bennett and Reinie Press, with arrangements and keys from Mike Melvoin and BGVs by the Love Generation. That orchestra of subtlety frames Cassidy’s tenor with the softest edges: a brushed snare, a sighing string figure, guitars that glimmer like early light on window glass.
Lyrically, Where Is the Morning lives in a timeless human moment: the sleepless vigil after a life-turning encounter. The narrator waits, replaying glances and half-promises, bargaining with the clock. Cassidy doesn’t oversell it. He leans into the hush between phrases, letting the melody carry a question that has no immediate answer. The performance understands that longing isn’t loud; it’s measured in breath and patience. That restraint—so often overlooked when we talk about his fame—was one of Cassidy’s great gifts. Even at the height of teen-idol mania, he could underplay the drama and make it feel more intimate, more grown-up.
Placed alongside “Blind Hope” and “I Lost My Chance,” the track sketches an emotional itinerary that older listeners will recognize: hope, hesitation, hindsight. Where one song searches for faith and another accounts for missed timing, Where Is the Morning simply waits, accepting that sometimes the only honest thing you can do is endure the dark and trust the light to arrive. Heard inside Cherish, it deepens the album’s portrait of a young artist pushing past poster-boy expectations toward something interior and durable.
If you came here for statistics, the ledger is brief: no single, no peak position. But that, too, is a truth about the era. The early ’70s still gave space for album tracks to become private companions—songs you didn’t hear on Top 40 radio but met while you studied a sleeve photo, while the turntable lifted and reset. For many, Where Is the Morning was one of those confidences. It’s the sound of a star learning to speak in smaller rooms, with a voice that invites you closer.
And that’s why the recording endures. Cassidy’s phrasing is feather-light yet emotionally exact; Melvoin’s arrangement drapes it in dawn-colored hues; the band plays like people who know that sometimes the most important note is the one you don’t play. In a catalog rightly remembered for giant hooks and screaming audiences, Where Is the Morning is a letter slipped under the door—personal, unhurried, and perfectly scaled to the listener who needs it. Nearly every household has known a night like this one; not every artist has known how to sing it.
For context, Where Is the Morning appears on Cherish (Bell 6070 U.S.; Bells 210 U.K.), recorded in 1971 and released early 1972, with the personnel above and the track running 2:53. Treat it as the album’s quiet candle: small flame, steady heat, and a room full of stories you’ll recognize as your own.
If you return to it tonight, don’t chase a chorus. Let the song keep you company until the sky turns pale. That’s where its power is—the heart learning, one minute at a time, how to wait for morning.