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by Hawk (©J.D. Jackson)
In his chart-topping 1962 classic musical hit “That Is Why I Love You So,” the late but great singer and dancer Jackie Wilson sang reasons why he loved his true love. He sang: “The way you make me feel that I belong / the way you make me right when I am wrong / the way you sacrifice just for me / just how lucky can a poor man be? / That is why I love you so. / Yeah, I want the world to know.” Echoing that same sentiment, yes, heart-felt cry, is the “godfather of soul” James Brown and his lyrics: “This is a man’s world / but it wouldn’t be nothing without a woman or a girl.”
Then the mighty, tall and talented Temptations’ magical words come to mind: “I’ve got sunshine on a rainy day / When it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May / I know you would say / What could make me feel this way. / My girl.” That predated the powerfully truthful words of Beyonce that “girls rule the world.” For the old saying is true: “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” And just who mostly rocks the cradle, responsible for raising the world’s boys and girls?
You know: women and girls.
All too often, the value of the feminine gender goes underestimated – at bargain-basement prices not penthouse-level ones. This has led many women, in the wise words of the white-looking but Black Baptist minister and United States Congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr., to become “depressed … frustrated … [and] downtrodden.”
But “Keep the faith, baby. Keep the faith!” Why?
Because in the woeful words of the Arthur Prysock-narrated “To My Beloved,” “because hate is legislated, written into the primer and the testament, shot into our blood and brains like vaccines or vitamins” and because, as Michael Jackson sings, ladies, “You rock my [men’s] world!”
In the soulful words of Sam Cooke, “Soothe [us], baby. Soothe [us]. Soothe [us] with your kindness. / Oh, you know your powerful loving is soothing to [us]”. And, using the lyrical genius of Motown’s Smokey Robinson and the Miracles: “I will build you a castle with the towers so high that it will reach the moon / I’d gather melodies from birds that fly and compose you a tune. / If that don’t do / then I’ll find something new. / Give you loving warm as mama’s oven / And if that don’t do / Then I’ll try something new … If at first I don’t succeed / try and try is what I’ll do / always trying something else / always trying something new.”
That is, unless I hear it Marvin Gaye style “through the grapevine, / that no longer will you be mine.” Don’t make me croon like King Solomon Burke, ”When [my] baby leaves [me] all alone / and nobody calls [me] on the phone / don’t [I] feel like crying … cry … ca … ca … ca … ca … cry … crying.”
So let’s make our love be “always and forever” and “rock, rock study.” And let us not make Prince’s “doves cry.” But, in the words of the great trio, the O’Jays, I will be “emotionally yours.” Quoting Smokey again, “If you want it [my / our love], you got it forever … I love it when we’re cruising together”; for, in the words of John Legend, you’re a “Wonder Woman” and I love your “Ebony Eyes” and the certified Isley Brothers’ “Brown eyed girl.” Citing Smokey once more, “Mistakes, I know I made a few / But I’m only human / You’ve made mistakes, too. / Ooo, baby, baby.”
But remember, Smokey again, “I don’t like you but I love you / Seems like I’m always thinking of you / though you treat me badly / I love you madly / You really got a hold on me. / I don’t want you but I need you / I don’t want to kiss you but I need to / though you do me wrong / my love is strong / You really have a hold on me”; “I don’t want anything else but being with you.”
So, like the Mamas and the Papas, this is “dedicated to the one I love.” That means the world’s Black queens, Black women or the sisters, most especially Kay.
J.D. Jackson, aka Hawk, is a professional journalist who wrote for the Black paper in Birmingham, Alabama. He can be reached at jdjackson878@gmail.com.
