Music: LADY SOUL SINGING IT LIKE IT IS
(10 of 10)
As the first mellow chords rippled from the organ and piano, Aretha stepped out of the robed choir that was massed on tiers behind the altar. Moving in front of a lectern, she closed her eyes and sang: "Precious Lord, take my hand ..." The congregation nodded or swayed gently in their seats. "Sing it!" they cried, clapping hands. "Amen, amen!" Her melodic lines curved out in steadily rising arcs as she let her spirit dictate variations on the lyrics, finally straining upward in pure soul:
Please! Please! Please! Hear my call, 'Cause I'm gonna need you to hold on to my hand,
And I'm gonna need my friends right now 'cause I might fall. . .
"All right!" answered the congregation. She was with them now. Her voice spiraled down to a breathy whisper, then broke into intense, halting phrases as she almost talked to the end:
You know what's happening . . . and it's bad times right now;
Just lead us, just lead us, lead us on—We've got to get home.
Afterward, spent and exalted, Lady Soul said something that nobody in the church that night needed to be told: "My heart is still there in gospel music. It never left."
* "Sock it to me," one of Aretha's variations on "whip it," is another in the long list of sexual terms from blues or jazz that have passed into respectable everyday language. Having come to prominence through such recordings as Aretha's and Mitch Ryder's, "Sock it to me" is now used in a neutral sense as a catch-phrase on TV's Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In and is a common sight on bumper stickers and even political placards. Jazz (originally a copulative verb) and rock 'n' roll (from a blues lyric, "My baby rocks me with a steady roll") are other examples.
Most Popular »
- The '00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade From Hell
- The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting
- Obama's 'Mistakes': Way Too Early to Judge
- One Year After the Mumbai Massacre, a Trial Plods On
- Ahmadinejad in Brazil: Why Lula Defies the U.S.
- In His Cave, a Palestinian Farmer Makes a Stand
- California Judge Challenging Obama on Gay Rights
- Me and Orson Welles: Zac Efron Takes the Stage
- The Fall of Greg Craig, Obama's Top Lawyer
- Zhu Zhu Mania: Hamster Toys Are Ruling Christmas
- The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting
- The '00s: Goodbye (at Last) to the Decade From Hell
- Five Things the U.S. Can Learn from China
- Obama's 'Mistakes': Way Too Early to Judge
- Zhu Zhu Mania: Hamster Toys Are Ruling Christmas
- Why Exercise Won't Make You Thin
- Obama Weighs the Cost of an Afghan Surge
- Ahmadinejad in Brazil: Why Lula Defies the U.S.
- Will Private Equity Be the Next Meltdown?
- Think Big with an African Ocean Safari
Quotes of the Day »
Quotes of the Day »
RSS