Track-By-Track: O/B #33
The last of the tracks in my set for O/B in February 2018, this record closed almost two hours of some of the best fun I’ve had DJing in Lisbon.
A boogie foot-tapper, lyrically it continues the legacy of the best of disco tracks by exploring a very specific love situation through (some might say laboured) exposition:
I kept making excuses, but you kept hanging around
Wouldn’t take no for an answer, when I turned you down
One day, I finally gave in, and I had a taste of your love
Ain’t it funny how the tables turn, cos now I can’t get enough
If only Melba had been singing this three years later, she’d have had Lisa Lisa’s wise advice on ‘I Wonder If I Take You Home’ to warn her off this particular trap:
And I know and you know that if we get together
Emotions will go to work
And I may do something I might regret the next day
And end up hurt
Unfortunately for Melba she’s been caught hook, line and sinker, and it’s left ambiguous whether her man will be a hit and run lover (like Carol Jiani’s) or if he’ll stick around like she’s asking him to:
You said you want me, baby
Well, you want it, you got it, take my love
Said you want me for yourself (Ooh)
You want it, you got it, take my love
Melba Moore was a member of the original Broadway cast of the musical Hair in 1967, then had a big Paradise Garage hit with the McFadden & Whitehead-penned ‘Pick Me Up, I’ll Dance’ in 1978 before a string of successful singles in the early 80s. Below you can see her performing (aka lip synching) ‘Take My Love’ on the US dance show Soul Train in a spectacular pleather jumpsuit.
This concludes the Track-By-Track series for my set from O/B. In the next few days I’ll be making it available as a paid subscription HQ download (my BSU mix is already available here).
Next up for the Track-By-Track treatment will be my mix for The Ghost, leading up to the one year anniversary of its release.
Melba Moore - Take My Love (EMI, 1981)
(Discogs)
Note: this is an entry in the Track-By-Track series for my mix for O/B.
Track-By-Track is a series that looks back at records you will have heard in my mixes, one by one in the order they were played. Who made them, and when? How did I come across them? And what do they make me feel?