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Wilson Pickett - Mustang Sally

Wilson Pickett - Mustang Sally Lyrics and Youtube Music Videos

Album: Wilson Pickett's Greatest Hits
Released: 1966

Mustang Sally Lyrics

Mustang Sally, think you better slow your mustang down
Mustang Sally, think you better slow your mustang down
You been running all over the town now
Oh! I guess I'll have to put your flat feet on the ground

All you want to do is ride around Sally, ride, Sally, ride
All you want to do is ride around Sally, ride, Sally, ride
All you want to do is ride around Sally, ride, Sally, ride

One of these early mornings, oh, you gonna be wiping your weeping eyes
I bought you a brand new mustang 'bout nineteen sixty five
Now you come around signifying a woman, you don't want to let me ride
Mustang Sally, think you better slow your mustang down
You been running all over the town now
Oh! I guess I'll have to put your flat feet on the ground

All you want to do is ride around Sally, ride, Sally, ride
All you want to do is ride around Sally, ride, Sally, ride
All you want to do is ride around Sally, ride, Sally, ride

Writer/s: BONNY RICE
Publisher: Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, SPRINGTIME MUSIC INC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Mustang Sally

This song is about a girl who lives a wild life in her brand new Mustang car. The singer bought her the car, which transformed her into "Mustang Sally," and now she's running around town, paying little attention to her sugar daddy. Picket warns her that she needs to slow it down with one of the great threats in Soul music history: "Guess I have to put your flat feet on the ground!"

This song was written by Bonny Rice, also known as Sir Mack Rice. Bonny started singing with a vocal group called the Five Scalders in 1955 and joined The Falcons in 1957. Eddie Floyd was also in The Falcons, and Mack later wrote songs for him when he went solo. In 1960, Wilson Pickett joined The Falcons and sang lead on their 1962 hit "I Found A Love," and left the group for a solo career later that year.

In 1963, The Falcons broke up, and in 1965, Rice wrote a song called "Mustang Mama" after visiting his friend, the actress/singer Della Reese, in New York City. Reese told him that she was thinking about buying her drummer Calvin Shields a new Lincoln for his birthday, which Rice, being from Detroit, thought was a great idea. When he mentioned this to Shields, the drummer replied, "I don't want a Lincoln, I want a Mustang."

As Rice explained on the 2007 Rhythm & Blues Cruise, he had never heard of a Mustang before, but Shields filled him in. They went for a drive and saw a billboard for a Mustang - Rice couldn't believe Shields wanted such a small car instead of a big ol' Lincoln. When he returned to Detroit, Rice started writing the song as "Mustang Mama," with the chorus "ride, Sally, ride." His publisher knew Aretha Franklin well, and brought Rice by her house, and he sang some of the song for her. Aretha suggested he change the title to "Mustang Sally" to better suit the chorus.

In May of 1965 Bonny Rice released his original version of this song as Sir Mack Rice, and it hit the R&B charts, peaking at #15. Wilson Pickett came across the song when Rice was booked to play at The Apollo theater, and the headliner Clyde McPhatter didn't show. Rice called his old bandmate Pickett, who performed in McPhatter's place. When Pickett heard Rice perform "Mustang Sally," he decided to record it himself. His version hit the R&B and Pop charts a year and a half after Rice originally recorded the song.

Mack Rice later sang with Ollie and the Nightingales, joining them in 1970. He was also a staff songwriter for Stax Records, and wrote the hits "Respect Yourself" for the Staple Singers and "Cheaper To Keep Her" for Johnny Taylor.

This song was recorded at FAME studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. FAME had been operating since 1959 and had a big hit recording "When A Man Loves A Woman" for Percy Sledge. The Muscle Shoals musicians were building a reputation as some of the best in the business, and they caught the attention of Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records, which was Pickett's label. Wexler sent Pickett (a native of Prattville, Alabama) to record there, and the sessions produced this song and also his hit "Land Of 1,000 Dances." Wexler started sending more acts to Muscle Shoals, and in 1969, some of their top musicians, including guitarist Jimmy Johnson and drummer Roger Hawkins, left FAME and formed their own studio a few miles away, financed by Wexler. This became Muscle Shoals Sound Studios, where Paul Simon, Bob Seger, Rod Stewart, Lynyrd Skynyrd The Rolling Stones, Cher and hundreds of other acts would record in the '70s.

According to Rolling Stone magazine's Top 500 Songs, "Mustang Sally nearly ended up on the studio floor - literally. After Pickett finished his final take at FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the tape suddenly flew off the reel and broke into pieces. But the session engineer, the legendary Tom Dowd, calmly cleared the room and told everyone to come back in half an hour. Dowd pieced the tape back together and saved what became one of the funkiest soul anthems of the '60s."

Spooner Oldham, who is one of the top Muscle Shoals musicians and co-writer of the hits "I'm Your Puppet" (James and Bobby Purify) and "Cry Like a Baby" (The Box Tops), played the keyboard on this song. The keyboards are one of the most distinctive parts of the song, but they weren't on the demo - Spooner had to create the part so he could play on the record (and get paid). When we spoke with Oldham in 2011, he told us: "I was sitting on a stool, and we listened to a demo of Sir Mack Rice who wrote the song, and the first thing I noticed was there was no keyboard on that record. But I'm here, I want the job - what am I going to do that will work within that song? And I just closed eyes for a second, daydreaming, and said, 'I wonder what it would sound like if I pretended I was a Harley Davidson motorcycle and was driving through the studio, what would that sound like?' There's a little pause in that record where there's not much going on, and I do rorp-rorp-rorp kind of revving engine thing. And Jerry Wexler liked it, because he later tried to get me to do it again when I was in New York. Of course, I didn't, it was specific for that song."

This was featured in the 1991 movie The Commitments, which was about an Irish Soul band. Pickett's music got a lot more exposure after the movie came out.

Other films that used the song include Road House (1989), Miss Congeniality (2000), Bandits (2001), and P.S. I Love You (2007).

TV shows that have used the song include The Wonder Years, Miami Vice, and My Name Is Earl.

Wilson Pickett - In The Midnight Hour

Wilson Pickett - In The Midnight Hour Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: In The Midnight Hour
Released: 1965

In The Midnight Hour Lyrics

I'm gonna wait 'till the midnight hour
That's when my love come tumbling down
I'm gonna wait 'till the midnight hour
When there' no one else around
I'm gonna take you, girl, and hold you
And do all things I told you, In The Midnight Hour

Yes I am, oh yes I am
One thing I just wanna say, right here

I'm gonna wait till the stars come out
And see that twinkle in your eyes
I'm gonna wait 'till the midnight hour
That's when my love begins to shine

You're the only girl I know
Can really love me so, in the midnight hour

Oh yeah, in the midnight hour
Yeah, all right, play it for me one time, now

I'm gonna wait 'till the midnight hour
That's when my love come tumbling down
I'm gonna wait, way in the midnight hour
That's when my love begin to shine, just you and I
Oh, baby, just you and I
Nobody around, baby, just you and I
Oh, right, you know what?
I'm gonna hold you in my arms, just you and I
Oh yeah, in the midnight hour
Oh, baby, in the midnight hour

Writer/s: PICKETT, WILSON JR./CROPPER, STEVE
Publisher: Warner/Chappell Music, Inc., Universal Music Publishing Group
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

In The Midnight Hour Song Chart

Pickett wrote this with Steve Cropper, who wrote and produced many of the soul classics for Stax Records. Cropper played guitar on the Stax session band, Booker T. and The MGs.

Cropper recalled to Uncut in 2015: "I say in my shows that playing the guitar is real simple, you just follow the dots - the dots on neck on every guitar are in the same place. That's how I came up with the intro for this. They go, It couldn't be that simple,' then all of them go home and get their guitars out and go, 'Wow, it is!'"

Cropper and Pickett wrote this at the Lorraine Motel, which was located near the Stax studios in Memphis. On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot there while standing on the balcony.

This was produced by Jerry Wexler with Booker T. & the MG's as the band. Booker T. and The MGs played on many Soul classics, and had a hit of their own with "Green Onions" in 1962.

Atlantic Records gave Pickett the nickname "The Wicked Pickett" after this was released. They used it to promote him, claiming he got it because of his prowess with the ladies. Pickett lived up to the nickname - he spent some time in jail and struggled with drug use before his death in 2006 at age 64.

This was Pickett's first hit. He went on to become a soul music legend and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991.

Pickett also recorded "99 1/2" and "634-5789" at the Stax Studios, with backing by Booker T. and the MG's and the horns by the Bar-Kays.

When Pickett and Booker T and the MG's first tried to record the song, nobody liked the result - then Wexler had the idea to change the rhythm so that the teenagers could dance the jerk. According to Booker, the sight of Wexler demonstrating the dance to the band was most memorable and amusing. (thanks, Brad Wind - Miami, FL, for above 2)

In 1991, this was used in the movie The Commitments, which was about an Irish band who played the songs of American Soul singers. The movie helped introduce Pickett's music to a new audience.

Steve Cropper: "Wilson says he wrote the song but, you know, I listened to some old church stuff he sang on and he was singing 'See my Jesus in the midnight hour, see my Jesus in the midnight hour," over and over, and I said, 'I'm gonna see my girl in the midnight hour,' what about that?'"