A small, steady light for overcast days—The Partridge Family’s “I’ll Leave Myself a Little Time” turns patience into a promise you can hum.
The essentials first, so the memories have something solid to land on. “I’ll Leave Myself a Little Time” is a deep cut—not a single—from Up to Date (Bell Records, released February 1971). Written by Steve Dossick, it closes side two (B5) at a lean 2:27, and it was tracked during the early album sessions at United Western, specifically May 16, 1970. The album did the chart lifting—No. 3 on the Billboard 200, certified Gold on March 25, 1971—while the big radio moments went to “Doesn’t Somebody Want to Be Wanted” and “I’ll Meet You Halfway.”
If you remember the show as much as the records, you may also remember where you first heard it. The song turns up on television before the LP reached stores, in Season 1, Episode 2 (“The Sound of Money,” first aired October 2, 1970)—one of those tidy montage placements that stitched the sitcom’s storylines to the soundtrack of weeknights across America. It’s a gentle wink of continuity: a tune that already lived in the living room by the time you found it on vinyl.
On paper, the personnel read like a who’s-who of Los Angeles pop craft. Wes Farrell produced at United Western Recorders, Studio 2 with arrangements by Mike Melvoin and the Wrecking Crew regulars—Hal Blaine (drums), Joe Osborn (bass), Dennis Budimir and Louie Shelton (guitars), Mike Melvoin (keys). David Cassidy carries the vocal, framed by the Ron Hicklin Singers (the Bahler brothers among them). It’s the classic Up to Date blueprint: absolute pro chops delivering something that feels effortless and neighborly.
What does the song say? Not much—and that’s the gift. “I’ll Leave Myself a Little Time” is a modest pledge in plain English: even when trouble crowds the day, leave a corner of the calendar for gladness, a little space where the light can find you. There’s no drumroll into the chorus, no theatrical key change. The melody is the kind that sits with you at the kitchen table; the lyric moves like good advice from someone who knows you well enough not to preach. Read on the lyric page or heard in the episode, the message lands the same way—soft-spoken, sure.
Musically, listen to how the rhythm section behaves. Blaine’s snare doesn’t bark; it reassures. Osborn’s bass walks you forward without hurrying you. Guitars flick a few sun-glints at the end of phrases; the background voices arrive like a friendly hand on your shoulder and step back before they overstay. That restraint is the sound of early-’70s LA studio wisdom—the confidence to leave air around a small idea so it can glow. You can almost hear the room: the baffles, the pencil notes on a music stand, the nod between take and take.
Placed inside Up to Date, the track explains a lot about why this album still feels companionable after all these years. The marquee cuts do their job at radio; the deep cuts do the daily work—songs that keep the temperature of your evening steady. That balance helped the LP climb into the Top 3 in spring 1971, a remarkable feat for a TV-born project sharing the chart with heavyweight albums of the era. If you were spinning records on a console with a lift-top lid, this was the side-ender that sent you into the room’s quiet with your shoulders a little lower.
For older ears, the lyric’s little philosophy may ring truer now than it did then. Life teaches you that joy rarely arrives on schedule; you have to save it a seat. That’s what this song models: leave yourself a few minutes for the good stuff even on the days that don’t deserve it. It’s not naïve; it’s practical mercy. And when Cassidy leans into the title phrase, you hear a kind of grown-up tenderness—no grand pronouncements, just the steadying voice you’d want nearby when the weather changes.
A few pins for the scrapbook: Artist: The Partridge Family. Song: “I’ll Leave Myself a Little Time.” Writer: Steve Dossick. Album: Up to Date (Bell, Feb 1971), side two, track five; length 2:27; recorded May 16, 1970 at United Western. Album performance: Billboard 200 No. 3, RIAA Gold (Mar 25, 1971). TV use: featured in S1E2, “The Sound of Money” (Oct 2, 1970). All tidy, all true—and behind the facts, a small, steady song that keeps opening the window a crack, letting the day breathe before it’s gone.