“You 20th Century Fox”

Ray Charles’ disco foray reaches something of a peak on “You 20th Century Fox” from his 1978 album Love And Peace. The song was written by Mable John, James Ingram, and Joel Webster and led off the LP; it was also resurrected as a single B-side the following year.

As with most of Ray’s disco-derived songs from the late 1970s, “You 20th Century Fox” (not related to the similarly-titled Doors song) is aggressive and funky – Ray only liked hard disco. It’s built around a propulsive beat and a gorgeous, burbling electric piano playing ultra-quick notes that, mixed low to blend with everything else, give the song its terse rhythm rather than its melody.

A tasty guitar inserts random little wah-wah notes here and there and a synthetic-sounding brass section gives the song its spunk and angular shape.

Ray as a vocalist is effusive and fervid on “You 20th Century Fox”, whose lyrics tell the tale of a girl so fine that she could, if she wanted, “get to all I got”. With his usual warm, soulful energy he sings in a heavily rhythmic fashion, summoning all his feeling in a tone both celebratory and abject.

Look at her!
Fine as she wanna be…

The lyrics of “You 20th Century Fox” even pay tribute to actual discotheque life, in a situation that really hasn’t changed much since 1978:

You were having such a time on the dance floor
All my buddies were around
So I told them I was gonna get you
If it’s the last thing I do in this town

Ray, presumably, wasn’t really going disco dancing and looking for women; he had his other established means for that end. But he sure sounds like he likes the idea here.

As the lead-off song on the Love And Peace album, “You 20th Century Fox” sets the tone for an album inspired by the new danceable sounds of popular music of the time. You could think of it as his mission statement ca. 1978: this is how Ray makes disco soulful and fun.

Single releases

“You 20th Century Fox” wasn’t used as the B-side for the one single released from Love And Peace (“Riding Thumb”) but it was used the following year to promote Ray’s next album.

Listen to “You 20th Century Fox”

Get your own “You 20th Century Fox” on 45, LP or MP3 from Amazon.