“Breakfast in Bed” (Dusty Springfield)

We continue spinning the tracks on Dusty Springfield’s groundbreaking 1969 release, Dusty in Memphis. Today’s featured track is “Breakfast in Bed,” perhaps the sexiest tune on an album full of sexy tunes. It was the last track on side one, a perfect closer for the first half of the album.

“Breakfast in Bed” is about woman who’s been hurt by her lover, showing up at the singer’s door for a little comfort. It’s obviously something they’ve done before and it doesn’t have to mean a thing, as witnessed by the lyrics (“you don’t have to say you love me”) that reference one of Dusty’s earliest hits:

You’ve been cryin’
Your face is a mess
Come in baby
You can dry the tears on my dress
She’s hurt you again
I can tell
Oh, I know that look so well

Don’t be shy
You’ve been here before
Pull your shoes off, lie down
And I will lock the door

And no one has to know
You’ve come here again
Darling it will be
Like it’s always been before
Come on over here

Breakfast in bed
And a kiss or three
You don’t have to say you love me
Breakfast in bed
Nothing need be said
Ain’t no need

What most people didn’t glom onto is that this is a song about two lesbian lovers. The singer is obviously a woman (“you can dry the tears on my dress”), as is the person knocking on her door (“you’ve been cryin’, your face is a mess”). Given Dusty’s sexual orientation (she hadn’t come out yet, but she would later) the song makes perfect sense. It’s a little daring for the time, however, and like I said, I’m not sure all listeners figured that out.

“Breakfast in Bed” was written by Muscle Shoals songwriters Eddie Hinton and Donnie Fritts specifically for Ms. Springfield. Hinton was a session guitarist in Muscle Shoals who played with all the greats, including Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Percy Sledge, Solomon Burke, and Otis Redding. He also did a little songwriting on the side. Fritts was a session keyboardist who also played in Kris Kristofferson’s band and, like Hinton, did a little songwriting on the side. “Breakfast in Bed” is their best-known collaboration.

Dusty in Memphis was the first of several albums trying to take advantage of the Memphis sound at the turn of the decade. A few months after Dusty in Memphis hit the shelves, Dionne Warwick released her Memphis-recorded Soulful. Then, a few months after that, home boy Elvis Presley released his From Elvis in Memphis comeback album, the one that included “In the Ghetto.” (The non-album single “Suspicious Minds” was recorded during the same sessions but not included on the album.) Then there was Petula Clark’s Memphis album and Jackie DeShannon’s Jackie, recorded in Memphis in 1972. It was a thing.

The Memphis sound all those artists were trying for was a soul sound, as exemplified by local Stax Records and their artists Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Booker T. and the M.G.’s, and Carla Thomas, as well as Al Green and other local legends recording across town at American Sound Studios. But it was also a white soul sound, driven by artists like Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, the Box Tops, Big Star, and, of course, Elvis. Memphis was a real melting pot, which is the sound you hear from the blonde English singer on the Memphis-produced Dusty in Memphis. It fit Dusty’s voice perfectly.