Today is the birthday of Dusty Springfield who died in
1999 at age sixty, living long enough to see a revival of interest in today’s
song, due to its evocative use in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction (1994). It’s
one of those things, y’know? If you’re watching the film and that song starts—do
you recognize it immediately? If yes, then you experience that scene much
differently, I believe. This song goes back to 1968 and I remember when it was
on the radio. I was nine then and don’t know if it made that big an impression
on me then. I seem to recall it from summertime which was probably the following
summer, when I turned 10.
The song is from the point of view of a young
girl fixating on a guy, “the son of a preacher man.” The preacher calls on the
family and Billy Ray, the boy, sweet talks and romances the girl who is the
speaker of the song. And she’s thrilled. And what’s more Dusty’s vocal
expresses all that adolescent thrill without irony or any sense of “if I knew
then what I know now.” She’s telling us the story of her sexual awakening and
even if you haven’t had one yourself, yet, you get the idea loud and clear.
If you were my age, having an older sister might help. I remember mine in her teens. There was a lot of attention
to boys and, if you listened, you could pick up on how a guy “reaches” a girl. This song zeroes in on that. The
refrain of the song keeps insisting that “the only one who could ever reach me”
was this preacher’s kid. It’s a succinct idea. A preacher’s boy, we assume, would be as wholesome as milk. But not this guy. “And can you get away again tonight?”
he asks. She also points out, gleefully, that they take time to make time. Cozy.
The part that gives a very palpable sense of the adolescent
thrills this song turns into the stuff of mystery and dream is: “Learning from
each other’s knowing / Looking to see how much we’ve grown”—and the way the
music and Dusty’s voice mounts there creates that kind of tension you can
hardly bear, just as she can’t bear the suspense of waiting to see how much he’s
grown, and it also shows the thrill of knowing he’s noticing what precisely has
grown on her. This is a song for that change that hits around sixth grade, seventh
grade, when suddenly the adult shapes begin to manifest themselves on the
bodies of children.
The song came along just a little ahead of that change in my
own life, so I always associate it with the mysterious change that was
taking place in my elders, when suddenly boys and girls, vaguely antagonistic up till then, start looking to spend
time together, to take walks like the couple in this song.
The song, recorded for the album Dusty in Memphis, was indeed
done in Memphis by Atlantic Records, taking Brit singer Springfield into the
fold that had produced the landmark records by Dusty’s heroine, Aretha. Indeed,
Aretha was offered the song first and turned it down. There’s a story, whether
true or not, that, after the song was out and a Top Ten hit, Aretha ran into
Dusty in the elevator at Atlantic Records and said just one thing, “girl!” It’s
a fitting tale because it indicates, I think, that Aretha
heard and admired how Dusty put it out there, putting sweet heat into the beds of teens
everywhere.
It’s a sly and sensual song, a key example of what is often called blue-eyed soul, and I have come to love it more
as the years go by and not least because of how Uma Thurman, as Mia Wallace,
bends her bare foot as she lifts the needle before going off on her platonic
date with Vince Vega in Pulp Fiction. Unfortunately, the needle is lifted
before the bit I always listen for, when Dusty talk-sings the line (with almost
Dylanesque intonation) “I was kissed by the son of a preacher man.” Smack.
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