“Get Out of My Life Woman” Special Edition: Q’65/The Mourning Reign/Tages –Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — October 5, 2024

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

Get into my life, “Get Out of My Life Woman”! Here are three killer versions of Allen Toussaint’s R&B classic (made famous by Lee Dorsey in ‘66 (#44, #5 R&B, #22 UK)) — garage classics by the Netherlands’ Q’65 and the U.S.’s Mourning Reign and a hypnotic beat version by Sweden’s Tages.

Mark Deming tell us about “Get Out of My Life”:

It’s hard to say how many blues tunes have concerned themselves with men dealing with women who have done them wrong, but few tunes put quite so sharp a point on this theme as “Get Out of My Life Woman,” written by Allen Toussaint and a hit on both the pop and R&B charts in 1966 for Lee Dorsey. Boiling this entire subgenre down to a dozen words, Dorsey sings with a swaggering defiance, “Get out of my life, woman/You don’t love me no more,” as Toussaint’s lean but rolling piano work and Roy Montrell’s sharp rhythm guitar chords back him up. Just so you don’t think our narrator is utterly heartless about all this, he next announces “Get out of my eyes, teardrops/I’ve got to see my way around,” though it’s not long before his self-confidence manifests itself once again and he tells the conniving female in question “Get off my ladder, woman/I got to climb up to the top.” In short, the song is about as prototypical as R&B gets, though Lee Dorsey’s great vocal performance and Allen Toussaint’s expert arrangement give their version a distinctive edge; however, that’s not to say plenty of other acts haven’t taken their own stab at this number, ranging from Freddie King, Solomon Burke, and Roy Head to Iron Butterfly, the Leaves, and the Kingsmen. Like I said, prototypical.

https://www.allmusic.com/song/get-out-of-my-life-woman-mt0002968692

Ashley Kahn tells us about Allen Toussaint:

By the height of the ’60s, Toussaint was New Orleans’s premier producer. Partnering with record promoter Marshall Sehorn, a veteran of independent R&B companies, he built his own studio, dubbed it Sea-Saint, and established a series of record labels.  As popular black music styles evolved from 1950s R&B to more soulful sounds and became powered by ever-funkier rhythms, so Toussaint’s productions – with Lee Dorsey (who served as Toussaint’s primary muse and voice), the Meters, Dr. John and others – morphed into a progressively heavier sense of syncopation, drawing heavily on New Orleans’s distinctive street parade beats. Toussaint’s songwriting as well assumed a broader, sophisticated perspective. Some tunes focused on daily, workaday realities and urban life: “Workin’ In The Coal Mine,” “Night People,” “Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley.” Others were more reflective, delivering messages of social protest and racial uplift: “Yes We Can,” “Freedom For The Stallion,” “Who’s Gonna Help Brother Get Further.” One song in particular – “Get Out Of My Life, Woman” – was so effective in defining a new, relaxed kind of beat, that for a number of years every touring ensemble and house band seemed to have it in their repertoire; it remains an R&B perennial, favored by the likes of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Iron Butterfly, Jerry Garcia, and most recently, the Derek Trucks Band.

https://concord.com/artist/allen-toussaint-c11139/

1,356) Q’65 — “Get Out of My Life Woman”

Off of ‘66’s Revolution LP. More about Q’65 at #108, 557, 913, 1,164, 1,227.

1,357) The Mourning Reign — “Get Out of My Life Woman”

‘67 B-side by the San Jose band. More at #916.

1,358) Tages

Off of ‘66’s Tages 2 LP. More at #286, 1,282, 1,353.

Here is Lee Dorsey:

Here is Allen Toussaint’s own ‘68 version:

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