original studio version on Al Green Explores Your Mind (Hi, 1974);
composed by Al Green and Mabon Hodges
This song was never a hit for Al Green, nor is it as attractive as Green’s many very attractive hits. It has always had a cult following because it is very much a cult item insofar as its verses are about sex and its chorus and bridge are about baptism. Some see this as a harbinger of Green’s entering the ministry and leaving secular music (temporarily) behind. Maybe. But it also gives the lie to the quaint notion (arguably David Byrne’s, among others) that the divide between secular and sacred is illusory, since Al Green himself would not have been conceivable without gospel music (or Sam Cooke, for that matter). But that does not mean the divide was any kind of illusory to Green, Cooke, or (especially) Marvin Gaye, the latter of whom that divide probably got killed after it drove him nuts. That is the open secret of this song: the parts do not go together because they are not meant to go together. The relative mildness of the studio version throws people, but a definitive live version from the following year shows the future Rev. Green less transported than mad as hell and not going to take it anymore.
Note: 25 secular essays (each one exactly 200 words long) about 25 songs, to appear one per day during Advent (or so) from Nov. 27 through Dec. 21.
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