Santana: No One To Depend On

The sweet overdrive of Carlos Santana’s instrumentation combined with the licks provided child prodigy Neil Schon create guitar the interplay on the single “No One To Depend On.” From Santana’s third album, commonly called “Santana III,” its second single didn’t fare nearly as well as the first from the album.

The Author and Neil Schon in 1982

While “Everybody’s Everything” peaked at #12, “No One To Depend On” barely scratched the Top 40 by charting at #36. While the single didn’t include the long instrumental parts as did this album version of the song, it was (in my opinion) the musically better of the two singles. This second single was released in 1972 and it was one of several Santana singles that I purchased as a teenager.

The song was penned by Santana keyboardist and vocalist, Greg Rolie and percussionists Coke Escovedo and Mike Carabello; however, Rolie's songwriting input was omitted from the credits on the single. This is a great song to illustrate the tasty licks of Carlos Santana and Neil Schon.