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This week our host Jim Adams for Song Lyric Sunday has given us the prompt is Other, That, This.

For the entire month of September I am doing a 30 Day Daily Biography Challenge. Each day it requires you to write briefly about one individual. I am using Jim’s prompt to focus on either the artist or songwriter. So Jim is assisting me greatly with Song Lyric Sunday.

Please consider carving out time to read the posts of other bloggers who responded to the Song Lyric Sunday challenge.

Rules for Song Lyric Sunday

Post the lyrics to the song of your choice, whether it contains the prompt words or not.  If it does not meet the criteria, then please explain why you chose this song.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due.  Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be.
• Make sure you also credit the singer/band and if you desire you can provide a link to where you found the lyrics.
• Link to the YouTube video, or pull it into your post so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post or place your link in the comments section below.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

The Other Side of Town

In the 1960’s and 1970’s I was really influenced by what many music critics called “Soul Music”. It originated in the African American community throughout the United States in the 1950s and early 1960s. It was a fusion of gospel, rhythm & blues and jazz. One of the artists I loved was Curtis Mayfield. Curtis Lee Mayfield made his first recordings in 1958 as a member of a Chicago Soul/R & B group, The Impressions. It was his work after that led me to love him.

The song I have chosen this week came from his debut solo album called “Curtis”. Some critics have called that album the Sergeant Pepper’s album of soul.

The second track on that album “The Other Side of Town” is my selection this week. One song on that album “Move On Up” is on a bunch of my different playlists. Mayfield was angry at the America he was living in but he used love and encouragement to foster change. Songs like “Keep On Pushing” and “People Get Ready” are two that I enjoy. Many people also equate Curtis Mayfield with the song “Superfly”

His falsetto voice and his ability to weave funk with a message is something I miss. He suffered tragedy on August 13, 1990 during a Brooklyn, NY. concert sound check. On a rain swept afternoon, high winds toppled a lighting rig. He was trapped underneath, his spine crushed in three places, paralyzing him from the neck down.  He died Dec 26, 1999 and his last album was released in 1996 and it was “New World Order”

Lyrics

Here is the song

Next week the prompt gets a little risque – Songs where somebody is having sex or talking about it.