Take Us Back

Album: Livin' on a High Note (2016)
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Songfacts®:

  • This is the opening track of Livin' on a High Note, an album featuring songs written specifically for Mavis Staples by a selection of artists. Virginia singer-songwriter Benjamin Booker penned this tune. Staples said:

    "I've been singing my freedom songs and I wanted to stretch out and sing some songs that were new. I told the writers I was looking for some joyful songs. I want to leave something to lift people up; I'm so busy making people cry, not from sadness, but I'm always telling a part of history that brought us down and I'm trying to bring us back up. These songwriters gave me a challenge. They gave me that feeling of, 'Hey, I can hang! I can still do this!'

    There's a variety, and it makes me feel refreshed and brand new. Just like Benjamin Booker wrote on the opening track, 'I got friends and I got love around me, I got people, the people who love me.' I'm living on a high note, I'm above the clouds. I'm just so grateful. I must be the happiest old girl in the world."
  • As this song notes, Mavis Staples' mother nicknamed her Bubbles as a child. "I said, 'Mama, why you call me Bubbles?'" the singer told The New York Times. "She said: 'Mavis, because you're so bubbly. Your spirit - you're so bubbly, you're so happy all the time. You keep all of us happy.'"

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