Songfacts®:

• Disco didn't die in 1980, it just got funkier. "Take Your Time (Do It Right)," one of the most reliable dance-floor fillers in the summer of 1980, has all the hallmarks of disco, with a big bass groove and layers of strings, horns and glockenspiel. It was the first single for group, which were from Atlanta but used the name Santa Monica until changing it to The S.O.S. Band, meaning "Sounds Of Success." They had seven members at the time, including lead singer Mary Davis, one of the more distinctive vocalists of the era.
• The song was written by the group's producer Sigidi Abdullah along with his friend Harold Clayton. They wrote it after Clarence Avant, head of The S.O.S. Band's label, Tabu Records, made him an offer: Sigidi could produce the band if he brought a hit song to the table.
  
  He did. "Take Your Time (Do It Right)" was a #1 R&B hit and went to #3 on the Hot 100.
• The guy Mary Davis is singing to on this song is in for a good night. She sees he's overworked and stressed out, so she puts him at ease, telling him to relax and reminding him to enjoy life. They lock the door, unplug the phone and take some alone time together. You can guess what happens next.
• Check out the percussion on this one. It twists and turns, with tings, claps and beats. According to Sigidi Abdullah, they used skillets for part of it.
• The follow-up single, "S.O.S. (Dit Dit Dit Dash Dash Dash Dit Dit Dit)," didn't rate, and the group's next two albums also underperformed. But their fourth album, On the Rise in 1983, got them back in the swing with "Just Be Good to Me" and "Tell Me If You Still Care." That album was produced by the young team of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who later led Janet Jackson to the top of the charts and helmed a flotilla of hit for other artists as well, including New Edition and Johnny Gill.
• The group Chicago group Max-A-Million covered this song in an electro-reggae style in 1995, taking it to #64 in the US.
• The album version runs 7:40. On the single, the song is split into two parts, with part 1 (running 3:51) the version most radio stations played.