'You Make Me Wanna Shout'

To observers of the contemporary American musical scene, the Isley Brothers are generally regarded as the most significant contributors to twentieth century Western culture. Their two albums, Shout (RCA Victor, #LMP-2156) and Twist and Shout (Wand Records, #653) have rescued a sinking Rock and Roll culture in America and reshaped it; the Isley Brothers make Bill Haley look adolescent, Buddy Holly untalented, and Ray Charles pathetically tame.

The supreme four minutes and 25 seconds of thse albums are (of course) the trio's immortal "Shout." To the casual listener this is the greatest song ever recorded, but many aspects of its greatness are quite subtle. With the tenderness and power of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, the Isley brothers portrays lover's implorings:

Come on now,

Come on now,

Don't forget to say you will;

Don't forget to say yay yay yay

Say you will,

Say it right now baby,

Say you will,

Come on, come on...

Yvor Winters' criticism of the "Waste Land"--that it "exhibits no progression"--could not be levelled at "Shout": it exhibits a dynamic, organic development, from doubt to certainty, from melancholy to exaltation. Contrast the preceding passage with

Now that I got my woman

I feel all right;

Everytime I think about you,

You been so good to me,

You make me want to shout,

Zip my pants up, shout!

Throw my hands back, shout!

Kick my heels up, shout!

In addition to its thematic depth and brilliance "Shout" reveals technical mastery. With all the craft and subtlety of Eliot employing allusions to the Blood of Isaiah, the Isley Brothers artfully weave passages from Jackie Wilson's "Lonley Teardrops" and Ray Charles' "What'd I Say" into the song deepening its meaning without harming its organic unity.

But "Shout" is by no means the only great song in the album. The two next best are "That Lucky Old Sun," which presents a Spenserian contrast between the ideal pastoral world and the world of brutal reality and "Respectable," which examines the clash of antipodal ethical systems within a society. The latter skillfully employs a catechismic device, reminiscent of Joyce, with the series of queries:

Didja love her?

NO! NO! NO! NO!

Didja hug her?

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

Didja squeeze her?

NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!

What kinds girl is this?

While the album Shout is great, many people consider Twist and Shout even better. In the Isley Brothers' early songs they improve upon--but nonetheless remain somewhat shackled by--the classical Bo Diddley syndrome, which needs no explanation here. Twist and Shout transcends. To risk oversimplification, one could say that the Isley Brothers began with the Twist and ascended to the U.T.

The title song of this album has justifiably risen to the stature of One of The All-Time Greats. But the song, like many others on the album, though it has a great emotional intensity, lacks the depth of its predecessors. T.S. Eliot has been sacrificed on the altar of Dylan Thomas. Consider the relative intellectual shallowness of

Shake it up, baby,

Twist and shout;

Come on baby, now,

Come on and work it on out.

Well, work it on out honey

Yeah, you look so good

You know you got me goin'

Like I knew you would.

Only "Hold on Baby" saves the Twist and Shout album from total intellectual aridity. The song presents a character delineation next to which Hamlet pales by comparison. The speaker implores:

Held on, baby,

Held on, my little honey,

He's only trying to take your love from me.

When he tries, baby, please don't let him,

When he tries, baby, better forget him...

The song evolves from a tone of calm suggestion to one of a frantic plea. But after a highly evocative sexual passage--which cannot be transmitted to the printed page--he closes with almost defiant self-assertion:

I don't blame him, baby, you're so fine.

If he thinks he's gonna get you

He's out of his mind.

No one can question the superiority of the Isley Brothers, but the relative merits of Shout and Twist and Shout is a moot point. We shall leave it to our discerning readership to decide