♪♫ ♪ ♪♫

Try a Little Tenderness
Otis Redding
The Otis Redding Dictionary of Soul
1966

♥: I'm not a big soul girl. Not to say I don't like the genre -- I do -- just that I don't actively seek it out. That said, when I saw this theme, I knew instantly what song (or at least artist) I'd pick -- because my father, on the other hand, loved soul. And R&B. And, eventually, hip hop. And, admittedly, I most clearly remember growing up with singer-songwriters and 70s psychedelic rock shoved into my ears ------ but I also remember a double CD called "Motown Classics" or something to that effect -- and I remember Otis Redding.

Bittersweetly, Otis Redding was one of the last artists my father introduced me to. I know he'd loved him for ages, but I have no recollection of hearing Otis Redding before 2004 or so, when my dad picked up a greatest hits album (as he was so wont to do -- dude would always come home with new CDs or books or trinkets, always so excited to share them) and immediately put on "Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay."
And I would've posted that song, which I love deeply (and which is one of the tracks I put on his funeral mix -- as an aside, god, what an exercize is that; crafting a playlist for a man whose music taste shaped yours as everyone pays him their last respects. Still...to this day, one of my favourite collections of music.), but as I delved into my Otis Redding albums, I couldn't NOT post 'Try a Little Tenderness.'


I feel everyone knows this song. Like, it's gotta be part of the collective unconscious at this point. It is so good. I can't listen to it without doing a little shimmy in my seat, or preferably getting up and shimmying on my feet. I love when it breaks down around the 3 minute mark -- when the song's almost over, but with enough time left for it to have a LASTING impact.