Tired Of Being Alone

Album

Al Green Gets Next to You

Label

Hi Records

Genre

Soul

Composer(s)

Al Green

Entered Chart

Jul 24, 1971

Peak Date

Nov 6, 1971

Released

June 1971[

Recorded

1971

Catalog #

Hi 2194

B-Side

Get Back Baby

According to Rolling Stone Magazine's 500 Greatest Singles, this came to Green when he woke up before dawn the day after a show in Detroit at a motel in rural Michigan with a song forming in his mind. Half an hour later, he had it written, but his producer Willie Mitchell wasn't much interested in Green performing his own material. Said Green: "I was toting my song around in my pocket for days on end, saying, 'Hey, I got a song.' Finally, at the end of the session, I said, 'Well, I still got a song.'" It became Green's first hit. This song was supposed to be released on an earlier album, Green Is Blues, but didn't make the cut for technical reasons. In 1971 it made it to Al Green Gets Next to You. This song was Green's first breakthrough hit - his first to crack the Top 40 in America. Earlier, he'd been trying to fit into the mold of his influences, including Jackie Wilson, Wilson Pickett, James Brown, and Sam Cooke. Hi Records vice president Willie Mitchell convinced him to be true to his own voice instead, and they produced the album Green Is Blues, which was a moderate success. Al Green Gets Next to You saw the single of "Tired of Being Alone," which was to be the first of his seven consecutive gold singles. Al Green isn't just a successful R&B, soul, and gospel singer - he's also an ordained pastor in the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Memphis, Tennessee. He joined the clergy in 1976, two years after a run-in with a psychologically disturbed girlfriend, who burned him in an attack before killing herself. While many claim the incident was a wake-up call for Green to change his life, he insists his conversion occurred a year before the tragedy. Modern audiences might know this song better by its cover version, done in 1992 by the band Texas. Ironically, Texas is from Scotland. "Tired of Being Alone" appeared on the soundtrack in the films Dead Presidents (1995), and Love Don't Cost a Thing (2003). It also featured in the seventh episode of Netflix's Sex Education, which premiered January 11, 2019.

I'm so tired of being alone,
I'm so tired of on my own,
Won't you help me, girl,
Just as soon as you can.
People say that I've found a way,
To make you say,
That you love me.
But baby,
You didn't go for that,
Ha, it's a natural fact,
That I want to come back,
Show me where it's at, baby.

I'm so tired of being alone,
I'm so tired of on my own,
Won't you help me, girl,
Soon as you can.
I guess you know that I, uh,
I love you so,
Even though,
You don't want me no more,
Hey, hey, hey, hey I'm cryin' tears,
Through the years,
I tell you like it is,
Honey, love me if you can.

Ya baby,
Tired of being alone here by myself, now
I tell ya, I'm tired baby,
I'm tired of being all wrapped up late at night,
In my dreams, nobody but you, baby.
Sometimes I wonder,
If you love me like you say you do,
You see baby, I, I, I, I've been thinking about you,
I've been wanting to get next to you, baby,
Sometimes I hold my arms and I say,
Oh baby, yeah, needing you has proven to me,
To be my greatest dream, yeah

Awh!

I'm so tired of being alone,
I'm so tired of on my own,
Sometimes late at night I get to wonderin' about you baby,
Baby, baby, ya ya, baby you're my heart's desire