Music Monday

I'm going back to high school with this song.  I'm pretty sure I slow danced to this song at a Homecoming or prom or both.  For certain I know that my friends and I sang along when this song came on the car radio -- especially when it came to the "you will never, never, never know me" part.

There is just something so plaintive and true about the music and lyrics.  It made me ache then and it still makes me ache now (maybe even more).

Teddy Pendergrass is amazing in this song.  But omgee, these outfits are a perfect example of everything that was wrong with 70's fashion.  Seriously, the guy in the royal blue has a nipple cutout -- what the h*ll was that costume designer smoking?  That one detail makes the midriff shirts, way wide collars, and tuxedo tails that appear to be attached to the polyester pants (or are they attached to a faux cummerbund or the shirt itself?) seem perfectly normal.  Looking at these color combinations, I feel like I'm shopping at Old Navy, where their colors always seem to be just a little bit off.  In the 70's, a lot of black soul groups wore super-sharp suits in bold colors -- purple, orange, maroon, yellow -- but these outfits are an odd cross of track warm-up suits and, in regards to the tightness in the crotch area, speed skating suits.  Fortunately the music is so smooth and sorrowful, that almost every time I listen to this sound, I close my eyes, tilt back my head, and let it rip.

From 1972, #1 on the US R&B charts, Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes with Teddy Pendergrass -- "If You Don't Know Me By Now"