“Until You Come Back to Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do)” (Aretha Franklin)

Your classic sweet soul song of the day is “Until You Come Back to Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do),” by Aretha Franklin. This song was just one of Aretha’s many hit songs, peaking at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the R&B chart in early 1974.

Aretha Franklin had a ton of Top 40 singles in the ’60s and ’70s. Most were pure soul (“Chain of Fools,” “Think,” “Rock Steady“), some were covers of other people’s hits (“Respect,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” “Spanish Harlem,” “The Weight”), then there was this one. “Until You Come Back to Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do)” just sounds different than most of her other hits. It’s more sophisticated, more airy, more… something. What it is, it’s a little more Wonderful.

That’s right, this song was written by Stevie Wonder (along with Morris Broadnax and Clarence Paul) way back in 1967, when Stevie (no longer Little Stevie) was just 17 years old. Stevie recorded it then but decided not to release it at the time. (Stevie’s version finally saw the light of day on his 1977 anthology, Looking Back—it has its charm but doesn’t have the edge Aretha gave it.)

Stevie offered this song to Aretha in 1973 and it was perfect for her. The track was produced by Aretha and Atlantic Records’ Arif Mardin and Jerry Wexler. It was recorded in New York with some of the city’s finest studio cats, including Donny Hathaway on electric piano, Joe Farrell on flute, Hugh McCracken on guitar, Richard Tee on organ, Chuck Rainey on bass, and the inimitable Bernard Purdie holding down the fort on drums. Mardin did the horn and string arrangements.

The song itself sounds smooth but is remarkably twisty. I think it shows how being blind since birth impacts the way Stevie hears things. Although it’s ostensibly in the key of D major, you really can’t tell it. The chords in the verse start on AMaj7 (that’s the V of the key) but then go to Am7/D, which is not in the key of D at all but rather the ii7/V of the key of G, which kind of makes sense because the next chord is GMaj7 for two bars. (It’s almost like he just put his fingers in a chord pattern on the piano and started moving them back and forth to see what else was there…) It’s cool and sophisticated sounding, but despite the stated key signature I really have no idea what key it’s really in, at least in this part of the song. (It kind of sort of feels like it’s in G—that GMaj7 feels rootish—but I’m not sure.) The chorus goes a little further outside, starting with Em7 – A7 – F#m7 – B7 then Em7 – Em9/A – DMaj7 (hey, now we’re in D!), with a nice little DMaj7 – Dm7 – G7 turnaround at the end, which leads back to the AMaj7 of the verse.

This is all very, very cool and when you know who wrote it, sounds very much like a Stevie Wonder tune. (Which, of course, it is.) Aretha makes it her own, however, and it’s a terrific arrangement. It didn’t sound like much else on the radio back in late 1973/early 1974, because it wasn’t. Stevie brings a unique harmonic sophistication to all his songs and Aretha made it soulful. It’s one of my favorite Aretha Franklin tracks.

This was just one of Aretha’s many hits, of course, and not even her biggest. Focusing just on her top ten hits from the Hot 100 gives us a list that includes “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You)” (#9 in 1967), “Respect” (#1 in 1967), “Baby I Love You” (#4 in 1967), “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman” (#8 in 1967), “Chain of Fools” (#2 in 1967), “(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You’ve Been Gone” (#5 in 1968), “Think” (#7 in 1968), “The House That Jack Built” (#8 in 1968), “I Say a Little Prayer” (#10 in 1968), “Bridge Over Troubled Water”/”A Brand New Me” (double-sided #6 in 1971), “Spanish Harlem” (#2 in 1971), “Rock Steady” (#9 in 1971), “Day Dreaming” (#5 in 1972), “Freeway of Love” (#3 in 1985), “Who’s Zoomin’ Who” (#7 in 1985), “I Knew You Were Waiting for Me” (with George Michael, #1 in 1987), and, of course, “Until You Come Back to Me” (#3 in 1973). And there were lots more where those come from that didn’t quite crack the top ten.

Aretha Franklin was without contest the reigning Queen of Soul from the 1960s through the turn of the century. It’s difficult to imagine popular music today without her influence. Ms. Franklin started performing when she was just 12 years old and continued all the way into her mid-seventies. She passed away on August 16, 2018, of pancreatic cancer, aged 76.