Tell Me Why, Tell Me Why, Tell Me Why

• Timmy Thomas, “Why Can’t We Live Together?”

S got me onto this one last year & it’s been in heavy rotation ever since. The “we” in the title refers to racial demographics, and the sweet-but-tart singing seems to wobble back & forth between wild hope and defeated resignation. The whole thing has a wonderfully eccentric vibe – check out the minimalist production values & those shrill, fractured organ lines.

What I really like about this song, though, is the extended instrumental intro – it goes on for about a minute and a half, or fully a third of the song, before we ever hear a voice. (Everything’s relative, but that does seem rather unusual for a song that was a big mainstream hit in 1973.) It’s as if the singer’s gathering the courage to lay out his case, or maybe just gritting his teeth & putting up with the status quo until he can put up with it no more.

I also really like that when Sade covered this for her first album, Diamond Life, she also started it off with a long intro. (After all, it’s not hard to imagine many singers thinking, Hey, my vocals are what people are showing up for.) When I heard the Timmy Thomas original, I felt like the song’s appeal was inextricably linked to his particular performance/recording, but Sade puts the lie to that.

• Sade, “Why Can’t We Live Together?”

(You can buy some Timmy Thomas here and Diamond Life here. I probably won’t keep these up here for long.)