Day After Day #315: I Thank You

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

I Thank You (1979)

After yesterday's foray into offensive content warnings (which I believe was caused by an apparently risque lyric that I later deleted), I'm going to keep things brief and relatively family friendly today. It's Thanksgiving, and I've watched exactly zero minutes of football and spent no time on my couch...because we're up in Canada for the second year in a row. We drove up to Toronto to visit my youngest daughter, who's in her junior year of college. We brought Thanksgiving to her, going to Whole Foods and getting the fixings for a low-key dinner, substituting a rotisserie chicken for a turkey. It was great to have the four of us together for Thanksgiving for the first time in five years.

In the spirit of the holiday, I'm going with ZZ Top's 1979 cover of "I Thank You," which was originally done by Sam and Dave in 1968. The original, written by David Porter and Isaac Hayes, is excellent, but I'm more familiar with the ZZ Top version that came out when I was 12. 

Billy Gibbons provides the gruff yet soulful vocals while also delivering the goods with some gutbucket blues guitar, while Dusty Hill on bass and Frank Beard on drums keep things tight on the bottom end. 

"You didn't have to love me like you did/But you did, but you did/And I thank you/You didn't have to love me like you did/But you did, but you did/And I thank you/But you took your love to someone else/I wouldn't know what it meant to be loved to death/You made me feel like I never felt/Kisses so good I had to holler for help."

The song was the first single on ZZ Top's album Deguello and it hit #34 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was still a few years before the band blew up with the 1983 album Eliminator.

"Every day was something new/You put on your bag and your fine to-do/You got me trying new things too/Just so I can keep up with you/You didn't have to shake it but you did/But you did, but you did/And I thank you/You didn't have to make it like you did/But you did, but you did/And I thank you."

The Sam and Dave version was a big hit, going to #9 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart and #4 on the R&B chart. The song has also been covered by numerous artists over the years, including Bonnie Raitt, the Casanovas, Bon Jovi, Paul Rodgers, Robert Randolph and Tom Jones.

I wrote about another ZZ Top song from the same album a few months back. They kicked a whole lot of ass back in the day. That's it! Hope you had a great Turkey Day.