BETRAYALS BEHIND HIM:

What's That in Your Shirt Pocket?: The Rev. Al Green talks about his spirit and what happened when God found his stash (Peter S. Scholtes, 3/24/04, City Pages)

City Pages: A question from the old days: What was "Take Me to the River" about, anyway?

Al Green: I wrote the song, "Take me to the river/Wash me down/Cleanse my soul/Put my feet on the ground." That's what I wrote down. Now, [guitarist] Teenie Hodges and Willie Mitchell wrote, "I don't know why you treat me so bad," and "took all my cigarettes," and da-da-da. I didn't write none of that. I wrote, "Put my feet on the ground." That's what I wanted. And at that time my feet definitely wasn't on the ground. Far from it. I was zinging away, I'm telling you.

CP: Do you still feel like your feet aren't on the ground sometimes?

Green: No, no. I asked to be delivered from that. And I was delivered from it. God said to me, "You have to pray about this. Now what I want you to do is...uh, what's that in your shirt pocket?"

I'm going like, "Huh? Oh, well, there's some junk up in it. But I just bought this." [laughs]

The man says, "Well, when you need my help, you call me."

I say, "Hold it, hold it. I need your help."

So he says, "Okay, speed up a little bit. Take the bottle out of the bag, roll down the window, start shaking. Ah ah ah, don't look back. Keep going."

Honestly, I never talk about that. But that really did happen. And since that time, I haven't done that. It's a waste of time, a waste of your money, a waste of your life. You betray your children, you betray yourself. I don't need that. I need to be... [breaks into song] "I don't know why/I love you like I do."