For once in my life I won’t let sorrow hurt me/
Not like it’s hurt me before.

Just like David Gray’s “This Year’s Love”, in “For Once in My Life”, Stevie Wonder is facing the prospect of a new relationship. Stevie seems like he’s in a much better place emotionally than Gray is.

Wonder realizes that he’s been hurt before but his enthusiasm over the woman lets him recognize that she is special, not just “this year’s love.”  What is his is hers and he is excited that he has found someone who truly needs him. We can hear it in his voice and the melody and tempo of the song.

This song is a Motown record and features a band with a full brass section, a gospel choir background group and a harmonica solo. You don’t hear this combination very often, but it works here perfectly. “For Once in My Life” is one of Stevie’s early and biggest hits.

For Once In My Life Lyrics

For once in my life I have someone who needs me
Someone I’ve needed so long
For once unafraid I can go where life leads me
Somehow I know I’ll be strong

For once I can touch, what my heart used to dream of
Long before I knew
Oh someone warm like you
Would make my dream come true, yeah yeah (For once in my life)

For once in my life I won’t let sorrow hurt me
Not like it’s hurt me before (Not like it’s hurt before)

For once I have someone I know won’t desert me
I’m not alone anymore (I’m not alone anymore)

For once I can say
This is mine you can’t take it
As long as I know I have love I can make it
For once in my life I have someone who needs me (Someone who needs me)

Hey hey hey, yeah (Someone who needs me)
Oh baby, Lord baby

For once in my life I won’t let sorrow hurt me
Not like it’s hurt me before (Not like it’s hurt before)

For once I have something I know won’t desert me
I’m not alone anymore (I’m not alone anymore)
For once I can say
This is mine you can’t take it
As long as I know I have love I can make it
For once in my life I have someone who needs me (Someone who needs me)
For once in my life (Someone who needs me)
Somebody that needs me (Someone who needs me) Oh baby, for once in my life

Songwriters: Ronald N Miller / Orland Murden

Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless aching need/
I say love, it is a flower, and you, its only seed.

“The Rose” by Bette Midler is a beautiful song written by Amanda Mcbroom. The lyrics are especially good. This song gets over-looked. Is it because we hear it on the radio too often? Is it because it is soft-rock? (I maintain that soft rock does not get its due as “serious” music for whatever reason.) Regardless this is beautifully sung by Midler, and a great song.

So, what is The Rose and what is McBroom trying to tell us? Midler starts off by telling us how some people can wrongly view love: as a hunger that needs or a razor that cuts. That isn’t love. Love is within us and is the ultimate culmination of our beings: like a seed become a flower, we grow Love.

In the final verse Midler talks about how the winter can challenge the seed. However, we know that with a little help from the sun, the seed will grow to become the rose. Similarly, with a little perseverance on our end, we can survive the tough times and spring will be right around the corner and we will blossom into a rose.

It is a message of hope in three verses with no bridge.  Not many pop and rock songs with such a simple structure, but it works. The piano and strings arrangement work perfectly.

The Rose Lyrics

Some say love, it is a river, that drowns the tender reed
Some say love, it is a razor, that leaves your soul to bleed
Some say love, it is a hunger, an endless aching need
I say love, it is a flower, and you, its only seed

It’s the heart afraid of breaking, that never learns to dance
It’s the dream afraid of waking, that never takes the chance
It’s the one who won’t be taken, who cannot seem to give
And the soul afraid of dying, that never learns to live

When the night has been too lonely and the road has been too long
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter, far beneath the bitter snows
Lies the seed, that with the sun’s love in the spring becomes the rose

Songwriters: Amanda Mcbroom

Lovin’ you whether, whether/
Times are good or bad, happy or sad.

Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” is a great R&B/ Soul tune from the early 70s. The first line to the song, it is so classic. “I I I..am so in love with you”.  Al Green’s voice is so smooth! He goes in and out of falsetto so effortlessly…go ahead, try to sing along.

The song is so likable: it is an optimistic love song about staying together…not about wanting to get the girl. And he wants to stay together whether “times are good, bad, happy or sad.”

The beat on this song is strong… I was a huge Soul Train fan. When I was younger, I watched reruns of the show and Al Green appeared on one of the episodes.  He “sung” and danced to this song and I remember thinking what a stud he was.

Also, the song was about my speed on the dance floor…there was no one doing the splits during this song, so it at least seemed like I might be able to dance to this song, should the time ever necessitate me busting out some moves. Thankfully, it never did. I say “sung” because no one sang live in those days on TV, unfortunately. Almost every band lip-synced. Some better than others.

Let’s Stay Together Lyrics

I, I’m 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
Loving you forever
Is what I need
Let me, be the one you come running to
I’ll never be untrue

Oh baby
Let’s, let’s stay together (‘gether)
Lovin’ you whether, whether
Times are good or bad, happy or sad
Oh, oh, oh, oh, yeah
Whether times are good or bad, happy or sad

Why, why some people break up
Then turn around and make up
I just can’t see
You’d never do that to me (would you, baby)
Staying around you is all I see
(Here’s what I want us do)

Let’s, we oughta stay together (‘gether)
Loving you whether, whether
Times are good or bad, happy or sad
Come on
Let’s stay, (let’s stay together) let’s stay together
Loving you whether, whether times are good or bad

Songwriters: Willie Mitchell / Al Green / Al Jackson Jr