Day After Day #86: Let's Stay Together

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

Let's Stay Together (1972)

Some songs are just classics right from the start. Such is the case with Al Green's "Let's Stay Together." Green was starting to enjoy some success when he released the song in late 1971, the lead single from his 1972 album of the same name. He had come up as a soul belter along the lines of Otis Redding, but his producer Willie Mitchell convinced him to try a different approach.

Instead of replicating another singer, Green dialed back the histrionics and was himself. Green used his falsetto as he crooned about pledging to spend his life with his partner. Green reportedly wrote the lyrics in five minutes, but it's what he does with those fairly simple words about commitment that makes the song special.

"I, I'm so in love with you/Whatever you want to do/Is all right with me/'Cause you make me feel so brand new/And I want to spend my life with you/Let me say that since, baby, since we've been together/Ooh, loving you forever/Is what I need/Let me be the one you come running to/I'll never be untrue."

Trying to bring out the best performance from Green, Mitchell knew the singer was best in a live setting, so he reportedly gathered about a dozen neighborhood drunks, bought them some wine and had them sit quietly and watch Green record "Let's Stay Together." Hopefully they remembered what a great song they heard (as well as the multiple takes Green did trying to find the right one).

Musically, the song keeps it simple as Mitchell's band lays down a solid backing for Green's amazing voice to do its thing.

"Why, somebody, why people break up?/Then turn around and make up/I just can't see/You'd never do that to me/Just being around you is all I see/Here's what I want us to do/Let's stay together/Loving you whether/Times are good or bad, happy or sad."

The song went to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, remained on the chart for 16 weeks and topped the R&B chart for nine weeks. Green went on a good run for the next few years, releasing several albums and a string of hit singles. However, in 1974, his girlfriend assaulted him by dousing him with a pot of boiling grits and then committed suicide. He pledged to turn his life around and became a pastor, although his first wife accused Green of domestic abuse and divorced him in the early '80s. 

Throughout the '80s, Green only recorded gospel music, until he returned to secular music with the 1988 song "Put a Little Love in Your Heart," made for the Scrooged soundtrack with Annie Lennox. Meanwhile, other artists had success covering his songs, including Tina Turner with "Let's Stay Together" (on her big comeback album Private Dancer), Living Colour with "Love and Happiness" and the Talking Heads with "Take Me to the River."

"Let's Stay Together" has been covered by a plethora of artists, including Isaac Hayes, Al Jarreau, Roberta Flack, Michael Bolton, Boyz II Men and Low. It has also showed up in many TV shows and movies, most notably in Pulp Fiction, where it memorably plays in the background as Bruce Willis' character is meeting with Ving Rhames' crime boss. That's where I first got into the song (although I had heard Turner's version a decade earlier) but hearing Green sing sweetly in the background while Rhames is dropping a ton of f-bombs is both jarring and entertaining. 

Quentin Tarantino has done a great job filling his soundtracks with classic yet underappreciated songs, and the Pulp Fiction soundtrack is probably the best example of that. It certainly brought "Let's Stay Together" to my attention, and for that I am greatly appreciative.