"Tonight is the night...."

This is one of the few songs I've practically memorized from childhood.
Betty Wright is the queen of the dirty song, but this is one of her most poetic.
I think it's beautiful, one of my favorites.

Funny to think that I was listening to this as a child, humming along as it burned itself into my cortex....sitting up in the front of the school bus, chatting with the bus driver.

Mr Savage and I had struck up an odd friendship, based upon our love of soul. We middle aged black folk recognize each other, regardless of the form we sometimes take....like, say, a 9 year old white boy or a grizzled 40 year old father of three with an eye for the ladies.

While the kids in the back screamed for him to "change the channel!" we chatted.
They sulked in the back, desperate to listen to
some god-awful "white music."

He wasn't having it. It stayed firmly on WYLD.

This was his god-damned bus.
Dammit.

The bus ride always seemed to take longer than it should. We always seemed to be stopping at houses all over the westbank for brief periods of time.
Every morning he'd get off the bus for a short while and rush back in and off we'd go, but I never minded.
More time for Betty Wright.

A few years later, of course, Mr Savage was arrested for dealing drugs (which he was doing with us on the bus every morning on our way to grammar school), but he'll always hold a special place in my heart.

This one is for him.