Rarely If Ever Noted: a Transcendant Moment of Aretha's

Unlike many of us beset with problems, Aretha Franklin had an escape route: her genius.

Aretha Now, released in June 1968, was not merely Aretha Franklin’s fourth album for Atlantic Records; it was her fourth album in 15 months. Were Jerry Wexler, Aretha’s producer, and Atlantic overworking her? I happen to think they were.

Snapped at just the right moment, the album’s cover photo of a buoyant Aretha, a big smile dimpling her cheeks, belies her misery at the time (the physical and verbal abuse she was taking from her husband and manager, Ted White) as strongly as it mirrors the joy of this album's finest song. I refer to Aretha’s sensualization of "I Say a Little Prayer," which composer Burt Bacharach and lyricist Hal David wrote for another, more ethereal, ex-gospel singer, Dionne Warwick. Wexler called Aretha's "I Say a Little Prayer" "a magic stroke of luck." Let’s give a more authoritative arbiter the final word. "As much as I like Dionne's original, there's no doubt that Aretha's is the better record. Hers is the definitive version." Thus Burt Bacharach, who not only co-wrote the song, but arranged Warwick’s 1967 version, conducted the orchestra, and produced it. Here is Warwick’s lovely performance.

Now let’s listen to, and dissect, Aretha’s version, and hear how a genius’s mind works.

And we’re off. Warwick and her various backup singers always enter at the same time. Aretha and hers never do, which here immediately sets up a nice call-and-response between the star and her ladies-in-waiting. (I’ll note that Aretha’s backup singers on this and many of her songs are the great Sweet Inspirations, whom Aretha has drilled to the tips of their beehives.) At 0:18, Aretha sings "before I put on my makeup." "Makeup!" the ladies pertly answer. When, at 0:30, the Inspirations sing "To live without you would only mean heartbreak for me," Aretha drives the point home with a fervent "nobody but me!"

Bacharach was famous for scoffing at conventional time signatures, challenging listeners (and studio musicians) with off-balance meters such as 5/4, five quarter-notes in a measure, instead of the conventional four. Warwick's first Top Ten hit, "Anyone Who Had a Heart," changes time signatures throughout, from 4/4 to 5/4 to a nasty final measure of 7/8. Convention be damned, Bacharach would have thought, it just sounded right, probably the first odd-meter song in rock.

Nor does Bacharach play by the rules in "I Say a Little Prayer." Another composer would have let the line at the start of the release (0:39): "Forever, forever, you'll stay in my heart" flow seamlessly into the next, "Forever, forever we never will part." Bacharach can't resist inserting five little words— "and I will love you!"—between the two phrases, just to jolt us out of our complacency. Very tricky, enough to trip up everyone but pros like Dionne and Aretha. But Aretha adds several tricks of her own.

At 0:35, the Inspirations swing in just before the downbeat (the first quarter-note of a measure), that is, on the "for" of "forever and ever." Aretha jumps in behind the beat with her own gutsy "Forever!", followed immediately by her improvised "EVer!", equally gutsy and equally behind the beat. ¹

She strikes again, near the end of the song, messing one last, glorious, time with Burt Bacharach. Pay attention, now, to three seconds of genius.

Things are presumably winding down, with Aretha and the ladies cooing "Answer my prayer" back and forth, when the volume picks up (2:30) and Aretha leaps in (need I say, an eighth-note behind the beat) with "Forever!", instantly leaps back in ("EVer!") and, before you've even thought about catching your breath, re-enters a third time (2:33), flying up to a thrillingly drawn-out "EVER!!" It is one of the transcendent moments in Aretha Franklin's career.

1. The basic rhythmic unit, or beat, in rock & roll and R&B, as in most, if not all, popular music, is the quarter-note, four of them per measure. Singing before or behind the beat has a name: syncopation, or dropping a note into an unexpected place. It’s an essential element of pop singing, a kick in the pants that leaves the listener off-balance and gladly so. Two past masters of syncopation are Frank Sinatra and Willie Nelson, but it’s a trick that every first-rate pop singer in the past century has had frequent recourse to.