Quite intoxicated, John came home later that night, around 4:30 am, and called the whole thing off. During a night of drinking with blues singer Long John Baldry and long-time collaborator Bernie Taupin, they convinced John not to go through with it.
#Meaning of story of my life song how to
John knew things weren’t quite clicking in the relationship, going on two years at this point, and he didn’t know how to call off the upcoming nuptials. And more in a general sense, from person-to-person - I'm going to give you respect and I'd like to have that respect back or I expect respect to be given back.In the summer of 1970, Elton John nearly married then-secretary Linda Woodrow. But when I recorded it, it was pretty much a male-female kind of thing. “In later times, it was picked up as a battle cry by the civil rights movement. It’s cemented its place in pop culture, appearing in wide-ranging films like Mystic Pizza, Forrest Gump and Bridget Jones’s Diary and has been covered by diverse artists like Reba McEntire, Janice Joplin, Ike and Tina Turner, Kelly Clarkson, and Justin Bieber.įranklin herself told NPR that the song definitely went on to hold more meaning than she originally expected. Though Franklin passed away in 2018 due to complications from pancreatic cancer, the relevance of her song lives on. READ MORE: Aretha Franklin and 11 Other Black Singers Who Got Their Start in Church The song’s legacy lives on I think it is a credit to her genius she was able to do so much with it… Her version is so deep and so filled with angst, determination, tenacity and all these contradictory emotions. She gave it another groove the original song did not have.It took on a universality the original never had. That powerful message that related to both communities came about by her ability to infuse a universality along with passion into the lyrics, as author David Ritz of Respect: The Life of Aretha Franklin told The Washington Post : “She deconstructed and reconstructed the song. “In Black neighborhoods and white universities, her hits came like cannonballs, blowing holes in the stylized bouffant and chiffon Motown sound, a strong new voice with a range that hit the heavens and a center of gravity that was very close to Earth,” author Gerri Hirshey of Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music wrote. The women’s rights movement wasn’t the only one drawn to the message - it also unified both sounds of the color lines in an age of the civil rights movement. It was a powerful assertion that women - and in particular, women of color - deserved respect. The confidence of Franklin's vocals became a musical force behind the women's movement. “The interplay between Franklin and her backup singers became the voice of female solidarity. “‘Respect' suddenly became an anthem of women's empowerment,” CBS News described. He knew the identity of the song was slipping away from him to her.”Īnd that’s exactly what happened. “He said, ‘She done took my song,’” Wexler told Rolling Stone. Photo: TOBY JORRIN/AFP via Getty Images "Respect" instantly became an anthemīefore the song was released, Redding went up to Wexler’s office and he played it for the artists. Memorial dedication ceremony in Washington, D.C. She wanted to hang onto the original tempo and the bulk of the lyrics but add a bridge and call-and-response section, with her sisters Carolyn and Erma singing backup, according to the Los Angeles Times.Īretha Franklin sings at the opening of the Martin Luther King Jr. So Franklin arrived at the New York City recording studio on February 14, 1967, with a mission - and a clear vision. When she walked into the studio, it was already worked out in her head.” “In this case, she just had the idea that she wanted to embellish Otis Redding’s song. “Aretha wrote most of her material or selected the songs herself, working out the arrangements at home and using her piano to provide the texture,” her producer Jerry Wexler told Rolling Stone. Standing on the frontlines of the civil rights movement, Franklin was soon committed to also speaking out and breaking down barriers - and when she heard Redding’s take on “Respect,” she saw the skeleton of a power anthem. “I always had a great admiration for and his sense of decency and the justice that he wanted. So she asked for her dad’s permission and set off on parts of King’s tour, along with Harry Belafonte and Jesse Jackson. “I don't think anyone knew how significant he would be in history, but everyone knew what he was trying to do and certainly trying to gain equal rights for African Americans and minorities,” Franklin told Ebony in 2013.