♫ Let’s Stay Together ♫ (Redux)

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, music, music history

I was just strolling through the vast fields of YouTube, looking for the song that fit my mood tonight like that last piece of a jigsaw puzzle, when … BAM!!!  There was one of my favourites, Al Green … singing this just for me!  (Okay, okay, Al Green doesn’t know that I exist, nor does he care, but … a girl can dream, can’t she?)  I’ve played this one before, but it’s been a couple of years and it really, really fits my mood tonight.  I’m playing a few versions, as I did last time I played it, but Al Green’s will always be my absolute favourite. 

A day or two ago, one of you mentioned Al Green and so I asked around and …

Al-Green… look folks, it’s our friend Al Green!  What you got for us tonight Al?  Ah yeah … that’s great …

Green was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995. He was referred to on the museum’s site as being “one of the most gifted purveyors of soul music”.  He has also been referred to as “The Last of the Great Soul Singers”.  Green is the winner of 11 Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

Let’s Stay Together … that tune turns me inside-out!  I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner!  Thanks Al!

Al Green wrote the lyrics to this song; the music was written by Al Jackson Jr., and Willie Mitchell. Jackson is a legendary soul drummer who recorded with Booker T. & the MG’s; Mitchell was Green’s producer. Green did about 100 takes before he got one he liked, and even then he wasn’t sure the song was any good. It was Mitchell who set him straight, telling him it “had magic on it.”

According to Rolling Stone magazine’s Top 500 songs, after Willie Mitchell gave Al Green a rough mix of a tune he and drummer Al Jackson had developed, Green wrote the lyrics in 5 minutes. However, Green didn’t want to record the song and for two days he argued with Willie Mitchell before finally agreeing to cut it.

Tina Turner’s 1983 cover of this song revitalized her career, returning her to the charts in both the UK and US for the first time for over a decade. Now, I am a big Tina Turner fan, but for this song, only Al Green will do.  However, since Tina Turner’s version was bigger in the UK, and I have a lot of UK friends, I will play her version too.

Barack Obama sang a couple of lines of the song during an appearance on January 19, 2012 at the Apollo Theater in Harlem for a fund-raising event. Al Green was the opening act and as the American president took to the stage, he noted the soul legend’s presence in the audience and surprised his staffers close by with an impromptu spot of crooning. “Those guys didn’t think I would do it,” he joked. “I told you I was going to do it. The Sandman did not come out.”  I have included that short clip just because … I wanted to.

I used to believe that someday, some guy would sing this to me.  Sigh.  🐺

Let’s Stay Together
Al Green

Let’s stay together
I, I’m I’m so in love with you
Whatever you want to do
Is all right with me
Cause you make me feel so brand new
And I want to spend my life with you

Let me say that since, baby, since we’ve been together
Loving you forever
Is what I need
Let me, be the one you come running to
I’ll never be untrue

Oh baby
Let’s, let’s stay together (‘gether)
Lovin’ you whether, whether
Times are good or bad, happy or sad
Oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah
Whether times are good or bad, happy or sad

Why, why some people break up
Then turn around and make up
I just can’t see
You’d never do that to me (would you, baby)
Staying around you is all I see
(Here’s what I want us do)

Let’s, we oughta stay together (‘gether)
Loving you whether, whether
Times are good or bad, happy or sad
Come on
Let’s stay, (let’s stay together) let’s stay together
Loving you whether, whether times are good or bad

Songwriters: Willie Mitchell / Al Green / Al Jackson Jr
Let’s Stay Together lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc, Universal Music Publishing Group, Kobalt Music Publishing Ltd.

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27 thoughts on “♫ Let’s Stay Together ♫ (Redux)”

  1. Jill, this has always been a favorite. The music, the sentiment, and that velvety voice. I believe Green became a minister cutting short a nice musical career. I had seen Obama do his rendition. And, of course, Tina will give any song wings. Keith

    Liked by 1 person

  2. I reallyreallyreally love this song. I heard Al Green’s first, but love Tina’s every bit as much, because, well, Tina Turner! And when Pres. Obama sang it, well. That was pretty awesome. Thanks, Jill!

    Liked by 1 person

    • Wow, Ali!!! I’m so glad that you reallyreallyreally love it!!! I like Tina Turner, but … I dunno, sometimes I’m offput by her. Yes, Obama was pretty awesome! Glad you enjoyed the music, dear friend!

      Liked by 1 person

  5. I only knew Tina Turner’s version which I always loved since I heard it the first time. Oh, and Obama, he is just so cool… gosh, you guys must miss him in the White House.

    Liked by 3 people

  7. Al was a flawless soul singer, and could do no wrong for me until he went all ‘Gospel’. His version is definitely the best, but Tina had a hit here with it too. It was made with the collaboration of UK group, Heaven 17. They often duetted with her at the time, and I bought the extended 12-inch single of them performing the song. The video shows them on stage together on a TV show.

    Best wishes, Pete.

    Liked by 3 people

    • That was great, Pete!!! I almost turned it off during the first minute while she seemed to be simply screaming into the microphone, but once she started actually singing, it was terrific! Thanks for sharing that one … I hadn’t ever heard of Heaven 17 before!

      Liked by 1 person

  8. Funny, I don’t remember you playing this either time before, was I not here those days? I made no comments. And the comment I am about to make is not about the music you played, but rather an ode to the memories it instilled in me.
    This song is bittersweet for me. 5 great loves in my life, and a few shorter ones, and I always felt this way st the start. But I could never keep my mind at peace, I was always striving to be better at life, and somehow, whether it was 2 years or 14 years, I always ended up feeling smothered. It’s not that I didn’t still love my partners, but that the changes I was going through required new places, new people, and no one was willing to do that with me. I had wandering feet — not sexually, but for new life experiences.
    I think it all started when I was just a kid, six or seven years old. One of my favourite songs on the radio that almost made me cry every time I heard it was called Freight Train Blues. Now, I cannot find the version I remember anywhere, and I listened to about 10 different versions just now trying to find it. Nothing came close. In the end i narrowed it down as a cross between The Weavers and Tennesesee Ernie Ford, but you have to use your imagination to hear it the way I heard it. The wail of the whistle was right out of a prairie night, when the whistle carried forever, slowly fading as the train moved farther and farther away…
    I’ll just add one more thing. Now, in my 70s, I pretty much know who I am and what I think my life is about. I no longer need to roam. Gail is the benefactor of all those lost loves, and she appreciates it greatly. I’m home at last.

    Liked by 2 people

    • Possibly at least one of those times was when you were in the hospital? I think that the events of your childhood, a pretty much loveless home, contributed to the wanderlust in your life, always seeking something, but never sure quite what. I’m giving a hundred thumbs up to Gail for helping you find your inner peace, at least to some extent, though I sense you’re still looking for something … not a partner, not a love life, but something to put your life into perspective. But rg, we cannot look for that outside ourselves, for it resides within and we just have to find the key to unlock it, I think. As to the song “Freight Train Blues” … um … my mother used to say, “If you cannot say anything good, then say nothing.” Nothing.

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