Can I Get A Witness

Album

Single

Label

Tamla

Genre

Soul

Composer(s)

Brian Holland,Lamont Dozier;Eddie Holland Jr.

Entered Chart

Oct 19, 1963

Peak Date

Dec 28, 1963

Released

September 20, 1963

Recorded

July 17, 1963; Hitsville U.S.A. (Detroit, Michigan)

Catalog #

Tamla 54087

B-Side

I'm Crazy 'Bout My Baby

Gaye wrote many of his own hits, but "Can I Get A Witness" was written by the famous Motown team of Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland. The title is a phrase commonly used in black churches and has a very spiritual connotation: When the preacher asks, "Can I get a witness," he's asking the congregation for affirmation, often met with the response of "Amen!" This song helped popularize the phrase. All three members of the Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team had a background in gospel music. Dozier explained to NME in 1984: "That was the thing a lot of black people played; a lot of gospel music and a lot of classical. When I was coming up, my aunt played piano and my grandma instructed her what to sing in church since she was one of the church's directors. My aunt played different classical music and I remember sitting on the stool and she would serenade me with these tunes and they sort of stuck with me, influenced me throughout the years. The gospel music on the other hand influenced myself and the Holland brothers because it was the thing you had to do every Sunday – go to church. Black gospel music was part of the lifestyle." They're barely audible, but The Supremes added background vocals on this track along with the song's writers, Holland-Dozier-Holland. The call-and-response style mimicked a church congregation shouting back to the preacher. The Supremes had a lot of support from Motown head Berry Gordy, but no hits to show for it when this song was recorded in September 1963. Holland-Dozier-Holland had some success with songs like "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" and "You Lost the Sweetest Boy," but no #1s. That changed in 1964 when H-D-H wrote "Where Did Our Love Go," and The Supremes very reluctantly recorded it. The songwriting trio ended up writing nine more chart-toppers for the group, which became the biggest female act on Motown. In 1973, Diana Ross – by then the "first lady of Motown" – and Marvin Gaye released the duets album called Diana & Marvin. The Holland-Dozier-Holland team also wrote Gaye's hit "How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You." With Gaye, they wrote songs in keys that were higher than he was comfortable singing, which got him into his falsetto. "We would stretch it a key higher, or even half a key higher, so it was out of his comfort zone and when he sang it, he could develop his own style and make the song his," Lamont Dozier told Songfacts. The Rolling Stones covered this in 1965. They recorded "Now I've Got a Witness," one of the first songs Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote, at the same session, using the keyboard riff from this for inspiration. The Stones also covered Gaye's "Hitch Hike" in 1965. Says bass player Bill Wyman: "Andrew Oldham was always pushing us to get us to do Motown things like 'Can I Get a Witness?' And he was right as well; he was more right than we were. And, of course, when Mick and Keith got into writing, the songs came out more like he was looking for. Keith was always more into Soul music than me or Charlie, and Mick loved soul performers like Wilson Pickett and James Brown." >> A cover version was a US #39 hit for Lee Michaels in 1971. This is the only other version of the song to make the Hot 100. Elton John played this to close out his set at Live Aid in 1985. His performance from the London stage was a highlight of the concert.

Ah listen everybody, specially you girls
Is it right to be left alone
When the one you love is never home
I love too hard my friends sometimes say
But I believe I believe that a woman should be loved that way
But it hurts me so inside to see you treat me so unkind
Somebody somewhere tell her it's unfair

Can I get a witness
Can I get a witness
Can I get a witness
Somebody

Is it right to be treated so bad
When you give her everything you had
Keep on talking in my sleep
'cause I haven't seen my baby all week
Now you kids you agree that
This ain't the way love's supposed to be
Let me hear you, let me hear you say yeah, yeah, yeah

Up early in the morning with her on my mind
Took to find it out all night I been cryin'
But I believe a woman's a man's best friend
I'm gonna stick by her till the very end
Well she causes so much misery
That I forgot how love's supposed to be
Somebody somewhere tell her it ain't fair

Can I get a witness
Can I get a witness
I want a witness
Witness, witness
Witness, witness

Everybody knows especially you girls
That a love can be sad
But I have a love that's twice as bad
Now all you chicks agree
That this ain't the way it's supposed to be
Let me hear you, let me hear you say yeah, yeah

I want a witness
I want a witness
I want a witness
I want a witness
Just a little bit louder
Louder yeah, oh yeah