Do What You Gotta Do
Roberta Flack
Chapter Two, 1970
I don’t know what the other 9 songs are in my top ten favorite songs, but this is the one I do know. It’s so subtle that I missed it the first few times around the turntable. It follows a rousing rendition of Eugene McDaniel’s “Reverend Lee,” a song about a “tall… black… strong… sexy… black… southern……… baptist minister” who is tempted by “satan’s daughter.” It includes the good Rev. saying “Lord don’t test me…not down where she touched me. My mind’s so hazy, my body is hungry.” The song builds to an orgasmic end and you wouldn’t be surprised why the subtle straight-forwardness of this song might be lost following the showmanship of that song.
“Do What You Gotta Do” has been performed by all manner of artists that I am loathe to mention here but Nina Simone did an earlier version that seems to be the version that brought the song to prominence; although, she didn’t write it. It was written by Jimmy Webb (more on that later).
Not to be morbid but I want this song played at my funeral. It’s a love song but its really about staying true to what you want no matter how it looks to everyone else, unselfishly wanting other people to be happy and being able to say goodbye because you loved fully and I hope my life has something to do with those things.
The funny thing about this song is that after being pleasantly surprised at how much more empowering this female perspective on a breakup was than the usual “you did me wrong” songs that I am used to, I realized it was written by a man. But after being initially disappointed, I realized that a lot of the disempowering “you did me wrong but what I’ma do without you?” songs are written by men too…so, I still count this one as a victory.
::: ::: ::: :::
Man I can understand
How it might be
Kinda hard
For you to love a girl like me
I don’t blame you much for wanting to be free
I just wanted you to know
That I loved you better that your own kin did
From the very start
It’s my own fault
What happens to my heart
I’ve always known you’d go and do
Do what you gotta do
My wild sweet love
Though it may mean
That I’ll never kiss those sweet lips again
Pay that no mind
Find that dappled dream of yours
Come on back and see me when you can
Now I know
I know if makes you feel sad
I know it makes you feel so bad
They say you don’t treat me me like you should
They got ways to make you feel no good
They got no way to know
I had my eyes wide open
From the very start
You never lied to me
The part of you that they’ll never see
Is the part you’ve shown to me
Go on and do
Do what you what you gotta do
My wild sweet love
Though it may mean
That I’ll never kiss those sweet lips again
Pay that no mind
Find that dappled dream of yours
Come on back and see me when you can
::: ::: ::: :::
>> songs are available for two weeks [5.7 MB]
January 12th, 2006 at 12:57 am
jon-o
your funeral music request is duly noted. (very morbid but just want to tell you it’s now written in my book of life) your life *is* about these important things in this song so the choice of soundtrack sounds about right to me.
November 1st, 2007 at 2:31 pm
[...] writer Jimmy Webb makes his second appearance on my blog. I had never heard of this song before hearing it on this record but apparently it was a [...]
November 10th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
[...] records and was aghast that I hadn’t recorded this song yet. I’ve shared my love of early Roberta Flack before but am glad to give another example of how her easy-listening reputation is unfortunate or [...]