How Otis Redding’s “Dock of the Bay” came to be is a story so dramatic, it almost reads like fiction.

And still, it’s what came afterward that changed everything.

After an August 1967 show at San Francisco’s famous Fillmore, Otis Redding sat on a houseboat in Sausalito, looking over a scene much different than those in the Deep South where he was raised and recorded music. He scrabbled up an old napkin and began writing: “I watch the ships come in and I watch them roll away again.” That’s where one of the most well-known songs in modern American music got its start, and almost never saw the light of day.

Over the months that Otis continued writing “Dock of the Bay,” he underwent a surgery to remove throat polyps. As he recovered, he truly feared he might never sing again. Or at least not the way he had on hits like “Love Man,” “A Change Is Gonna Come,” and “Hard to Handle” that relied on the signature open-throated growling vibrato that his fans had come to expect. He confided in his wife that he wanted to explore something different, and on December 7, 1967, Otis finished laying his first round of “Dock of the Bay” at Memphis’ Stax Records.

The execs hated it.

Otis was their biggest star by far, and the masculine sex appeal in his catalog toed a delicate balance that sold records across gender lines. “Dock of The Bay” didn’t have much that would appeal to either as far as the execs were concerned, and one who happened to be in the studio at the time was actually quoted saying, “I don’t know if we can ever release this song.”

Three days later, on Sunday, December 10, 1967, 26-year-old Otis Redding lost his life in a plane crash. With him were five members of the Bar-Kays, Stax’s hit-making house band. Their trumpet player Ben Cauley was the crash’s soul survivor. In a single day, music lovers worldwide and everyone at Stax Records was absolutely devastated.

By Monday, Steve Cropper’s phone was ringing. He’d co-written the track with Otis and played guitar on it as well. “They said, ‘Get that thing finished and get it to us.’ So, I went to work on it,” he said. “And probably the music is the only thing that kept me going.” Steve finished the track, adding the seagull and crashing wave effects—the same sounds that inspired its creation—as Otis wished.

Now… I’m breaking my own rules a bit with today’s feature because the video is actually nothing special. A montage of live concerts, still photos of Otis, and stock ocean footage, it’s not exactly the eye candy SOUND IN COLOR typically delivers.

But that’s part of the story here too.

Naturally, no footage of Otis singing “Dock of the Bay” exists. The track laid at Stax is the song’s ONLY finished recording. And that sole recording became the Western world’s first ever #1 posthumous hit song. “Dock of the Bay” broke through R&B charts, into mainstream charts, then UK charts to make history with over 4 million copies sold worldwide. The song went on to claim Grammys for Best R&B Song and Best Male R&B Vocal Performance. It even led to more of Otis’s studio sessions being released to the public.

What a bittersweet end to a such a moving story, but what a gift we were left from this marvelous talent. BMI documented “Dock of the Bay” as the sixth most recorded song of the 20th Century (tbd on the 21st, since this classic is absolutely enduring), and a handful of other singers have also charted with Otis’s bayside song, most notably, Michael Bolton. It’s a song that keeps on giving, and though the visual’s aren’t what you’re accustomed to, knowing how it came to be, I hope you’ll be touched to see Otis in his prime while he softly croons his eternal swan song.

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