Al Green - Call Me

literally every song here has been the best song ever for me at some point.

right now i think i have to go with 'here i am (come and take me)' which is the sexiest song ever written.

agreed

great great record

Jesus Is Waiting

if you're broken down

Maybe his best album tracks? His acoustic guitar solo playing against the strings in "Jesus is Waiting" is my favorite Al moment.

currently I am vibing on these snare hits in "Stand Up", so crisp

xp something about the mix in that song induces a weird but very pleasurable vertigo in me.

'stand up' is one of those few magic songs that can immediately make me feel like a million bucks if i'm down.

"Your Love is Like the Morning Sun" -- he'd tried to imagine what silence looked like.

title track for me -- something about the way it opens seems to encapsulate and herald all the greatness that is to come

one thing i'd love to see is a breakdown of tracks by drummer (H. Grimes vs Al Jackson) in the classic era

This might be borne of sort of half-listening, but some of Al's vocal lines at the end of 'Have You Been Making Out OK' really reminded me of Tracey Thorn. Title could easily be an EBTG title, too (they'd definitely have used a question mark, though).

perfect album, torn between the title track and “here i am”

i'm trying to think of things to say about these songs but finding it hard. what al does with his vocals on this thing, the double tracking, one always a little quieter than the other, and just the sheer brightness of spirit in the falsettos that feel like they're rocketing through the stratosphere at max speed burning tenderness as fuel, bleeding into a sheer sound of love like a lamb in heat like in the chorus of 'have you been making out ok'. just like every moment, there's some turn or inflection that feels like a mystical revelation. it's really hard to put into words. like 'jesus is waiting' - it's really hard to explain what that song does and why it's so monumental? idk this record is so so rich materially while at the same time being very mysterious somehow. it has endless depths to it. and oh jeez 'i'm so lonesome i could cry' that baroque anguished take on the dark night of the soul i can't listen to without losing it, it's so devastating. so 'here i am,' true story, i did a striptease to that song for my boyfriends recently haha. please let any male strippers you know in your life that it's the song they need!

"I'm So Lonesome..." is where he masters the double tracking. Beautiful record.

Such a great album. Voted for 'You Ought To Be With Me', but it could be any of the tracks really.

when i was younger i tried to use garage band to make a rap beat out of “stand up.” the snare sound is so good and the “stand up” exhortations so tempting to seed throughout a track just blaze-style. I didn’t get very far but someone should steal my idea

The one album where I might be an outlier: "Have You Been Making Out O.K."

Another outlier here then

Yes, I'd say that's a popular tune.

That's the one here that does nothing for me.

I find the cover versions on this a lot more convincing the Bee Gees and Kristofferson on the previous records, maybe because the songs themselves aren't as wet.

It's amazing to me how well the track for "Your Love Is Like The Morning Sun" works given that it obviously accelerates after it starts - I can't believe they did this intentionally, but must have decided it worked out afterwards.

I'm picking "You Ought To Be With Me" for the way he ruminates melodically over the chord changes, which express anything but the confidence of the words.

"You Ought To Be with Me" would be my #2 for sure.

which express anything but the confidence of the words.

i must take issue with this but also note that your post is very subjective while pretending to be objective. on the subject of confidence in words, it does not inspire mine.

You don't think that the music expresses a lot of fear and doubt that are, at best, merely hinted at in the lyrics?

well i hear a very confident case being made at a crucial juncture in a relationship. at a stage when there are a few doubts and fears, and i definitely hear those in the margins. i don't hear the chord changes undermining the case being made. especially in the first verse, there are a lot of major chords. i think they reinforce the directness and simplicity of the case being made. when chords get a little more wistful like with that iv minor that shoes up from time to time, i hear yearning.

I hear confidence when he says that Jesus is waiting. When he says she ought to be with him, I hear a lot more hesitation about his ability to bring about this reconciliation.

Y'all are reading Al Green differently than I am.

I hear Al Green as ruminating on themes he'll embrace as a fact of life in a few years; he's savoring salvation like an amuse-bouche, trying it out, before the full bite.

That's why he says Jesus is waiting, He'll be there when Al is ready.

i've been listening to some of the later albums, halfway, and i think i see your point. there is definitely this sense in some of these songs that ... the relationships in question aren't going super well lol. i think i recall hearing about domestic issues in al's life but i can't remember the specifics? anyway.

Lord make me chaste, just not yet.

oof yeah

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Green#Personal_life

(xp)

Yes, maybe best not to delve to deeply into Al's personal life.

haha i've been avoiding the topic

“Jesus is Waiting” is just amazing - my reaction to it is always “well, I’m not a Christian, but…are you allowed to do this?” I suppose the answer is “sure, if you’re Al Green.”

haha, otm