Album: Stand! (1969)

Charted: 22

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Songfacts®:

• Written by group leader Sly Stone, "Stand!" is about how in life we must overcome obstacles and stand up for our rights; if we want something we have to go after it. Also to make people realize that everyone is free mentally because people cannot tell you how to think.
• This is the title track to Sly & The Family Stone's fourth album, Stand!. The first single from the album was "Everyday People," which earned them their first of three #1 hits. "Stand!" was the next single and a modest hit, but after that, Sly Stone made some changes. He moved their operations from San Francisco to a mansion in Los Angeles, where he hired assistants who enabled his drug habit. He had always written and produced the band's songs, but he started playing most of the instruments as well and refused to follow a schedule. Their next album, There's a Riot Goin' On, didn't show up until November 1971, over two years after Stand! Live performances also suffered; Stone traveled on his own and showed up on his own time, and often, not at all. They squeezed out some more hits, but creatively, Stone couldn't compete with his former self. The band broke up in 1975 and Stone never got one of his comebacks off the ground.
• Sly & The Family Stone closed out their set at Woodstock with this song. It was about 4:15 a.m. on the second day by the time they got to it, but most of the groggy crowd was up and enjoying the music. Remarkably, two more bands went on after them: The Who (at 5:00 a.m.) and Jefferson Airplane (at 8:00 a.m.).

Comments: 6

• James A. White Sr from OhIt is now, more than ever before, for Black folks or any other ethic population to STAND UP for truth. justice, equity and societal integrity. We don't need the majority population to give us our freedom and equity. We earned it. We are the core, heart beat and essences of the New World and America and made it a WORLD POWER.
  We as kidnapped African people and now citizens of USA have worked and died to Make America the nation that it is today. Any one who attempts to stop us we will BE persecuted to the full extent of the law for felony murder.
• Barry from Sauquoit, NyOn April 6th 1969, "Stand!" by Sly and the Family Stone entered Billboard's Hot Top 100 chart at position #80; five weeks later on May 11th, 1969 it would peak at #22 {for 1 week} and spent 8 weeks on the Top 100...
  It reached #23 on Billboard's R&B Singles chart...
  The record's B-side, "I Want to Take You Higher", also made the Top 100, it peaked at #60 and stayed on the chart for 7 weeks...
  Between 1968 and 1974 the Bay-area group had sixteen Top 100 records; five made the Top 10 with three reaching #1, "Everyday People" for 4 weeks in 1969, "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again)" for 2 weeks in 1970, and "Family Affair" for 3 weeks in 1971...
  They just missed having a fourth #1 record when "Hot Fun in the Summertime" peaked at #2* for 2 weeks in 1969...
  * The two weeks that "Hot Fun in the Summertime" was at #2, the #1 record for both those weeks was "I Can't Get Next to You" by the Temptations.
• Matt from Galway, IrelandI love the way it gets all funky in the end.
• Melissa from The Acerage, FlThis song is amazing. I love how the message is getting bihind your beliefs and holding them to yourself! Not wimping out just because someone bigger is telling you that you are wrong. Letting people know that you are you and nobody else.
  
  "I am me.
  I am just me.
  I am a little like other cats but mostly i am just...
  ME!"
• Farrah from Elon, NcThis song so speaks to me.
• Dave from Scottsdale, Az"You,ve been sitting much too long, there's a permanent crease in your right and wrong."

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