I had a song in my head all day.  It was Cat Stevens’ Wild World.  I really, really wanted to play it tonight.  But … alas … I played it in August 2018.  I thought about redux-ing it, but … sigh.  No doubt I will play it again here someday, but … not today.  So, I listened to it four times, had my fill, cried each time, and finally moved on.  To … Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly.  But nope, already did that one, too.  Okay … NEXT …!  Oh … hey Al …… look folks, it’s our friend Al Green!  What you got for us tonight Al?  Ah yeah … that’s great …

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 readers, 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.  Because seeing a real man as president still brings a tear to my eyes, remembering how things once were.

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.