Otis Redding - These Arms of Mine

These arms of mine they are lonely and feeling blue.

Album: Pain in My Heart [debut album]
Recorded: Los Angeles, California
Genre: Soul, Deep Soul, Rhythm & Blues
Album Release: March 1964
Single Release: October 1962
Length: 2:34
Producer: Jim Stewart
Vocalist: Otis Redding [age 22]
Label: Stax Records

Music Video


Live in New York

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Credits

Details

• 'These Arms of Mine' was responsible for Otis Redding getting a record contract. He sang the song for the an exec at the end of a set by Booker T & The M.G.'s and the rest is history.
  
  "We had a few minutes left at the end of the session, and Al Jackson, our drummer, said, 'This guy with Johnny, he wants us to hear him sing.' Booker had already left for the day, so I sat down at the piano, which I play only a little for writing. Otis said, 'Just gimme those church things.' We call them triplets in music. I said, 'What key?' He said, 'It don't matter.'
  
  He started singing 'These Arms of Mine.' And, man, my hair stood on end. Jim [Stewart, co-owner of Stax] came running out and said, 'That's it! That's it! Where is everybody? We gotta get this on tape!' So I grabbed all the musicians who hadn't left already for their night gigs, and we recorded it right there. When you hear something that's better than anything you ever heard, you know it, and it was unanimous. We almost wore out the tape playing it afterwards." [Producer Steve Cropper talking to Rolling Stone]
  
  
• Otis' vocals are the real star of the show in his music. In the early sixties a singer had to survive on the strength of their vocals instead of having a funky haircut. Crazy I know. It's refreshing to hear a pure, unadulterated voice belt out a tune without having effects applied to it and the difference when compared to today's singers is huge, especially live. Modern music has a lot going for it but most of the vocalists, in my opinion, don't touch Aretha Franklin, Otis Redding and the like. The audiences of the time also understood how a singer could transform a song by giving it their own unique touch.
  
  It was common practice for singers to cover another persons entire songbook, with prominent artists such as Nina Simone releasing full albums of covers with titles like 'Nina Simone Sings Ellington'. 'Pain in My Heart', Redding's debut, only has one original composition, 'These Arms of Mine', and it was written by the man himself. It's a simple tune about a man missing his lady.
  
  
• Racial segregation was still prevalent in early sixties America and as Otis Redding was from the southern state of Georgia he experienced the restrictions in full force. African-American artists weren't free to play wherever they wanted, they had to tour black-only venues and, as such, their music developed a unique character of its own. It's separation from white music inadvertently created a distinct sound that appealed to would appeal to the majority.
  
  Many white people saw fit to profit from the talent of black singers but wouldn't share a faucet with them. When evil is systemic any one individual doesn't have to be evil themselves, they only needed to follow the status quo.
  
  However, Otis had less reason than others to complain. Music was one of the only avenues available to black people to make it out of poverty and with his songs, Otis struck gold. According to some estimates he made over $1m during his career which, adjusted for inflation, would be worth nearly $10m in 2024.
  
  At the time, white people weren't attending black night-clubs, but they were buying the records of black singers and in doing so exposing themselves to the impassioned pleas for equality found on songs like Redding's 1965 hit 'Respect'. By the time of Otis Redding's death in 1967, the civil rights movement was in full swing and his music helped bring it forth.
  
  African-American songs worked to humanise black people in the eyes of the white majority. The world Redding left behind was different to the world he inherited in 1941. In his 26 short years on Earth, he saw radical change begin to take shape, though it was far from finished, and still continues to this day.
  
  
• The song is in a 3/3 time signature.
  
  
  

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