I Need You

The song ‘Everybody Needs Somebody to Love’ was written by Bert Berns, Solomon Burke and Jerry Wexler and it is ranked number 429 on the Rolling Stone magazine’s list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Bertrand Russell Berns (aka Bert Russell or Bert Berns) was one of the great American songwriters and record producers of the 1960s. Berns’ song writing credits include ‘Twist and Shout’ which became a hit for the Beetles and was co-written with Wes Farrell, ‘Piece of My Heart’ which was sung by Janis Joplin and co-written with Jerry Ragovoy, ‘Here Comes the Night’ which was first recorded by Van Morrison’s band Them and became a hit for Lulu, ‘Hang on Sloopy’ which was also co-written with Wes Farrell and became a big hit for The McCoys, ‘Tell Him’ which was originally written and composed as ‘Tell Her’ and done by the Exciters and later by Barbra Streisand and Celine Dion and he co-wrote the Bow Wow Wow song ‘I Want Candy’.

Bert’s productions include ‘Baby, Please Don’t Go’ a song originally performed by Big Joe Williams but covered later by Them, the Van Morrison song ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ and the Drifters classic ‘Under the Boardwalk’. In 1963, Berns replaced Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller as staff producer at Atlantic, where he wrote and produced hits for Solomon Burke. In 1965, he formed Bang Records along with Ahmet Ertegun, Nesuhi Ertegun and Jerry Wexler. Bert Berns died at the age of 38 on December 30, 1967.

Solomon Burke was a soul and country music pioneer and member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Burke was a preacher and one of the early Atlantic Records soul singers, paving the way for greats like Wilson Pickett and Otis Redding, though he never achieved their level of success. He hired musicians from Charlotte, North Carolina, to play at a gig in Long Island and he drafted them in to play the instrumental riff on this song. The riff was the money march he did at church where the congregation marches down the aisle to the front to make offerings. Burke got the band cooking and they cut the record. In this song, Burke employs the style of a black preacher, in “which he begins by delivering his message in a style of a sermon, and offering salvation”. This song is about the virtues of the one that you love, and this was one of Burke’s best-known tunes. Solomon Burke died at the age of 70 on October 10, 2010.

Jerry Wexler was a music journalist who became a highly influential music producer, and is regarded as one of the major record industry players behind 1960s soul music. Wexler worked as a reporter for Billboard magazine in the late 1940s, he christened black popular music rhythm and blues, and as a record producer he helped lead the genre to mainstream popularity, propelling the careers of Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin and other performers. Jerry Wexler died at the age of 91 on August 15, 2008.

Everybody wants somebody
Everybody wants somebody to love
Someone to love
Someone to kiss
Sometime to miss, now
Someone to squeeze
Someone to please
And I need you you you
I need you you you
I need you you you
I need you you you
Oh, sometimes I feel like
I feel a little sad inside
My baby mistreats me
And I kinda get a little little mad
I need you you you
To see me through, babe
When the sun go down
Ain’t nobody else around
That’s when I need you baby
That’s when I say I love you
That’s when I say I love you
Let me hear you say yeah
Let me hear you say yeah
Let me hear you say yeah
Let me hear you say yeah
I need you you you you
Somebody to see me through, baby
I need you you you
I need you you you
I need you you you
When the sun goes down
Ain’t nobody else around
That’s when I’m all by myself
That’s when I need your lovin’ darlin’
That’s when I need you so bad
You’re the one I really need bad (???)
I need you
To see me through baby
In the morning time too
When the sun goes down
Ain’t nobody else around
I need your lovin’ so bad
Everybody needs somebody to love
I’m not afraid to be by myself but I just need to be somebody to love
All the time
All the time
All the time
All the time
All the time, babe
I said all the time, babe
I said all the time, babe
I need you
I need your lovin’ so bad
Let me hear you say yeah
Let me hear you say yeah
Let me hear you say yeah, yeah, yeah
Let me hear you say yeah
Uh, huh, huh, huh
Uh huh, huh huh huh
Yeah, I need you baby so bad bad bad, bad bad, bad bad bad bad
I need you
I need you you you
I need your lovin’ babe
I need your lovin’ darlin’
Everybody needs somebody
Everybody needs somebody
Everybody needs somebody
Yeah, yeah yeah
Everybody needs somebody
Everybody needs somebody
Everybody needs somebody else
You gotta need too, baby
See you through
Gotta be two to see it through