132. You And Me

Aretha Franklin: Spirit In The Dark (Atlantic, 1970);
composed by Aretha Franklin

One great thing about Aretha Franklin as a phenomenon is that you cannot praise her fulsomely without leaving out something key. An absolutely nonpareil singer, most obviously, but a terrific pianist as well – she plays on all of the greatest Atlantic sessions, cuing up everything that the best musicians in the country at the time did on her records. But then you miss what a great songwriter she also was. She had bigger self-written tunes than this track and bigger (if not necessarily better) albums than this great one, but so much about both was just so right in so many singular ways. The backup musicians on half this album were the Muscle Shoals crew, but the other half were the Dixie Flyers, the house band at Criteria Studios in Miami, who had not backed her up on record before and play on this track. Everything is keyed to her piano, which has an intimacy very much like having a lover wake you up just by breathing, aptly setting a lyric conveying a similar affect: “We've got our strength and our love for all mankind / But most of all, we've got peace of mind.” Did she, really? Maybe. Here, indubitably.

Note: Secular essays about individual songs, each one exactly 200 words long, appearing one per day through Advant and at least semi-regularly until Donald goes away.