Aretha Franklin--"Drown in My Tears"

From I Never Loved A Man The Way I Love You (Atlantic: 1967/ Rhino: 1995).

Interesting that the second track on Aretha’s star-making Atlantic debut should be, essentially, a torch song, on an album largely considered to be ground zero for “don’t give me no lip” female empowerment anthems. Famously recorded by Ray Charles for the same label eleven years before, “Drown In My Own Tears” represents a meeting between the young Aretha, who had been signed to Columbia in the early sixties and groomed to be a new Dinah Washington, and the slightly older and wiser Queen of Soul, who’d been heartily encouraged to incorporate the soaring gospel of her youth into a pop template. It’s redundant, at this point, to say that Aretha has at her disposal one of the greatest instruments in the history of recorded music. This song, melodramatic as it may be, highlights some of the sparks in that magnificent voice. I daresay Puccini himself could hardly make tears more operatic.

Give it a listen.