“A Girl I Used To Know”
Song by Ray Charles
“A Girl I Used To Know”, the final song on Ray Charles’ 1966 album Ray’s Moods, is a great place to find all of his disparate influences under one roof. It’s a country song, but you wouldn’t know it in the opening seconds of “A Girl I Used To Know”. For it begins with strings, strident and high, coming on like one of Ray’s soaring orchestral epics. When he starts singing, though, it becomes clear that “A Girl I Used To Know” is in fact a gospel tune.
By the time the circus-rink organ wheezes through the later verses the sweet country lilt of the actual song has become apparent, and the listener knows that “A Girl I Used To Know” is not any one thing; it’s a Ray Charles soup. The ingredients are varied – country, gospel, pop – and the stock, as always, is soul.
Listen to “A Girl I Used To Know”
Get your own “A Girl I Used To Know” on LP or MP3 from Amazon.
Songs on Ray's Moods