“Somebody”
Song by Ray Charles
Ray Charles’ sweaty, gospel-inspired song “Somebody” was the first song on Side 2 of his 1974 LP Come Live With Me, and one of the very few songs he wrote in the last decades of his career. “Somebody” sort of follows in the footprints of his breakthrough 1954 hit “Hallelujah I Love Her So” in that it derives from energetic black church music but has an entirely secular message.
A chattering bunch of people in the background – not a chorus, exactly, more like a studio full of supporters and associates vying for some mic time à la Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” – agree with everything Ray says during the song, which is perhaps the most prominent aspect of the recording. The chords are super-simple, because the rave-up is the thing on “Somebody”.
So as the band boogies away, Ray is in spectacular voice, displaying his mid-1970s flair for upping the grit in his own vocals when he wanted to get real down and dirty. When his voice breaks free and soars into the falsetto notes for a few words, it’s right out of a Sunday morning revival in the thickets of north Florida.
And just what has got Ray so excited on “Somebody”, is it the spirit of the Lord? No sir, it’s his warnings – okay, threats – that somebody will steal your partner away if you’re not careful. Each line he sings is short, a mere sketch, an excuse to lead him to the “somebody” chorus, which both he and the Raelets sing each time.
At times “Somebody” recalls “What’d I Say” in that the lines that Ray wrote are just throwaways, lyrics as old as time grabbed from the blues and thrown in just to get some meat on the bones of the music. An example: “You know I can’t hide, oh no, all this pain I feel inside”. Not illuminating, but it’s the way he sings it, his soulful high notes and his masterful phrasing, that make it great.
Elsewhere, there are clues to the state of Ray’s mind around 1974, “Somebody” being that ultra rare thing, a song written by Ray Charles, words and music. He had recorded other writers’ songs almost exclusively since 1960 (although for Atlantic in the 1950s he wrote many of his biggest hits). So what did Ray want to tell the world now? “Be careful!”
At first “Somebody” concerns itself with men losing their women, and Ray’s winking, comical way with words proves to be intact:
If your woman seems a little uptight
Brothers, whatever y’all been doing
You sure better start doing it right
Turnabout is fair play, though, and if Ray was going to bother writing his very own song, he was going to cover all the bases. “Somebody” finds Ray admonishing the female half of the population, taking particular delight in this task as you might imagine:
Some women do and some women don’t
So if you wanna keep your man, girls
You better give him what he wants
In lyrics that could only happen in the mid 1970s, Ray merges a down-home country metaphor with his unamused reaction to gender equality issues that were then at the forefront of American culture:
You better keep that rooster close to your crib
And girls, don’t get too excited about that women’s lib
Girls, don’t let ’em fool you
‘Cause they’ll take your man today
A clever touch, characterizing the women’s liberation movement as a ploy by women to steal other women’s men. Well, Ray could hope, couldn’t he?
A saxophone solo comes in (“aw glory glory hallelujah!” exclaims Ray as it begins) halfway through the song, and it may be played by Ray himself. (The liner notes on Come Live With Me offer no details.) Elsewhere, busy drumming and Ray Charles’ own electric piano give this war between the sexes gospel workout its funky edge. During the long fadeout, the band careens saucily back and forth between two chords while Ray sermonizes and ad-libs like a preacher possessed.
Single releases
“Louise”
b/w
“Somebody”
Listen to “Somebody”
Songs on Come Live With Me