Please Send Me Someone to Love
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Specialty Records
"Please Send Me Someone to Love" is a song written and recorded by Percy Mayfield in 1950 on Art Rupe's Specialty Records label. It was on the R&B chart for 27 weeks and reached the number one position. It has been called a "multilayered universal lament".[1]
This song was one of the most influential of its time, and was widely recorded by other artists. Mayfield sung it in a soft ballad style. Its appeal lay in the sensitivity of its lyrics in juxaposing an awareness of a world in conflict, with a personal expression of the need for love. [2]
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[edit] Song
Sung in Mayfield's gentle, suave vocal style, the lyrics were a combination of a romantic love ballad and a social message against discrimination.[3]
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- Show the world how to get along,
- And peace we'll enter when hate is gone,
- But if it's not asking too much,
And the refrain:
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- Please send me someone to love.
[edit] Covers
The song's durability is exemplified by cover versions being released by the likes of Count Basie, Pat Boone, Elkie Brooks, Solomon Burke, Red Garland, Etta James, B. B. King, The Moonglows, Jimmy Witherspoon, Dinah Washington, The Animals, Sade and E.G. Dailey.
[edit] Notes
- ^ West coast artists - Percy Mayfield. Retrieved on 2006-11-06.
- ^ Gillett, Charlie (1996). The Rise of Rock and Roll, (2nd Ed.), New York, N.Y.: Da Capo Press, p. 146. ISBN 0-306-80683-5.
- ^ Shaw, Arnold (1978). Honkers and Shouters. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, p. 193. ISBN 0-02-061740-2.
