Tag: You Send Me

Sam Cooke – You Send Me

You don’t hear voices like this every day. The soulful voice the man had was breathtaking.

The songwriting credit for the song has Charles “LC” Cooke, who was Cooke’s brother. Some say he was mistakenly credited and that Sam Cooke wrote it. It’s also said that Sam Cooke wrote the song but gave the credit to his brother because he didn’t want his publisher to get profits off the song. That is the story I believe. This song is credited to Sam Cooke with The Bumps Blackwell Orchestra.

*The song peaked at #1 on the Billboard 100, #1 on the R&B Charts, and #29 in the UK in 1957. Sam Cooke is one of the artists that you have to think…what could have been if he hadn’t had such a tragic death at such a young age… Not that he didn’t have a very successful career to that point. He had 20 Top Ten Hits, 29 Top 40 Hits, and 4 Number 1 hits in the R&B Charts.

In the Billboard 100, he had 34 songs in the top 100 and 4 top ten hits. He died when he was only 33 years old. I would suggest reading All Things Thriller’s post about Sam Cooke’s death.

*I looked up the chart position for this song. In Wiki and a Billboard database, it has number 1. I go to Billboard’s site and it doesn’t list the song as even charting… which is crazy. From what I’ve read…the charts changed that year in Billboard…maybe that was part of this. The B side was Summertime.

Art Garfunkel: “I must have sung ‘You Send Me’ to myself walking up and down stairwells at least a thousand times. It was on the charts right when I was having my first little success with Paul Simon as Tom and Jerry. I was just a kid, calling on radio stations for promotional purposes, and all I heard was ‘You Send Me.’ Sam was great to sing along with. He was my hero.”

You Send Me

Darling, you send me
I know you send me
Darling, you send me
Honest, you do, honest, you do
Honest, you do, whoa

You thrill me
I know you, you, you thrill me
Darling, you, you, you, you thrill me
Honest, you do

At first I thought it was infatuation
But, woo, it’s lasted so long
Now I find myself wanting
To marry you and take you home, whoa

You, you, you, you send me
I know you send me
I know you send me
Honest you do

Whoa-oh-oh, whenever I’m with you
I know, I know, I know when I’m near you
Mm hmm, mmm hmm, honest, you do, honest, you do
Whoa-oh-oh, I know-oh-oh-oh

I know, I know, I know, when you hold me
Whoa, whenever you kiss me
Mm hmm, mm hmm, honest you do

At first I thought it was infatuation
But, woo, it’s lasted so long
Now I find myself wanting
To marry you and take you home

I know, I know, I know you send me
I know you send me
Whoa, you, you, you, you send me
Honest you do

…

Max Picks …songs from 1957

I usually run this on Wednesdays after the Star Trek. We finished up season 2 and we are starting the last season…season 3 tomorrow!  Thanks for visiting the third installment of Max Picks. If you missed the first or second just follow the links.

1957

Let’s start this year with two brothers with some of the best harmonies ever in Rock/Pop…The Everly Brothers. Many guitar players could get close to the intro to this song but never exactly. The reason is Don Everly was using open G tuning…what Keith Richards later learned and made a career out of it…and that’s not an exaggeration. If you tune your guitar to open G tuning…you could play over half of the Stones catalog…believe me I do. Enough of guitar talk… this song was written by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant. This song has sheer beauty to it and also drive. I love Elvis but I’m leaving him off of this one since we featured him in the last two.

Now we get to the one…the only Pat Boone! NOT. I had to make sure you were paying attention. Now lets get to the bad boy of the fifties and all the decades that followed. He made other “bad boys” look tame. Jerry Lee Lewis was the real deal. Pure Rock and Roll that made Elvis look subtle. I can imagine he was public enemy number one with a lot of parents. Forget that though… his music is like an adrenaline rush to get up and move. The song was written by Dave “Curlee” Williams and James Faye “Roy” Hall.

I promised more Buddy Holly in the last post so I’m coming through on that promise. I could not believe the songs I could pick from in 1957. Take a look at the singles he had this year. Oh Boy, Not Fade Away, Peggy Sue, Everyday, Rock Around With Ollie Vee, and last but not least…That’ll Be The Day. That simple intro to this song is magic. I could have picked any of those songs. This song was written by Jerry Allison, Buddy Holly, and Norman Petty.

Now we have a singer who had a voice that was as smooth as silk. Sam Cooke‘s voice still gets to me. It was named as one of the 500 most important rock and roll recordings by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Many artists have covered it but I’ll take Cooke’s version of it any day. It was written by the man himself.

I want to add a doo-wop vocal group because they were very popular then and this song is great. This song is called Come Go With Me by The Del-Vikings. The first time Paul and John met…John and his band The Quarrymen were playing this song with Lennon making up the words “Come and Go with me to the penitentiary” and probably some obscene words here and there. It was written by Clarence Quick.

As always…thanks for reading and listening!