Double Take: 'Take Me to the River', Al Green / Talking Heads

Robert Webb on cover versions

Al Green's collaborations with the Memphis producer Willie Mitchell and the Hi Records rhythm section resulted in some of the most soul-stirring sounds of the Seventies. Included on Green's 1974 waxing, Al Green Explores Your Mind, is the gospel-tinged "Take Me to the River", written with Mabon "Teenie" Hodges, guitarist with the Hi house band. Green's song squares the singer's early religious convictions with more earthly interests: "Take my money, my cigarettes/... Take me to the river, drop me in the water." When Green was ordained as the pastor of the Full Gospel Tabernacle Church in 1976, he dropped the song from his repertoire. "As far as the church was concerned I was still singing rhythm and blues," he said. "[The Church felt] if you're serious about what you're doing, you can't sing that any more... So for eight years I didn't sing any of my music."

"Take Me to the River" remained an album track for Green. Instead it was taken into the R&B charts by Mississippi singer Syl Thompson. In 1978 it was a breakthrough single for Talking Heads, also featuring on their sophomore album, More Songs About Buildings and Food. Lead Head David Byrne recreated the song without sacrificing its intrinsic funk. He disassembles Green's original note-by-note, the tempo is slowed to a plod and the already loose arrangement massaged until it is indistinguishable from one of the Heads' own songs. Green approved and jokingly commented that he hoped to cover one of Talking Heads' songs someday. "I thought it was magnificent," he said. We still await Green's version of the Heads' "Psychokiller".