I don’t have a lot to say in this blog post. I know I’ll miss some, but these are my favorite Aretha Franklin songs.

This version of the Burt Bacharach song is nearly a religious experience to me. Its context is important, too. She recorded it in 1968, the deadliest year, for young Americans, in the Vietnam War, the year of the Tet Offensive.

A little Soul Train, introduced by the Ultra Cool Don Cornelius. What it is what it is. Sublime.

“Stand on up and party if you want to.” OKAY!

Yeah, it’s MTV-tailored, but it’s also fun. Clarence Clemons on sax: Frosting on the cake.

Everybody knows the Blues Brothers version, but let’s go back to the roots of the song, one she wrote. 1968. She’s twenty-six.

I’ll choose a different film to showcase Aretha. John Travolta plays an errant archangel in Michael. Three magazine reporters are trying to take him back to their editorial offices when they make a road stop at a rural honky-tonk.

Of course, there’s this song, written by Otis Redding.

This was her first hit. I’ve heard versions where she sounds like a female B.B. King—very bluesy—she is here, too, in this early version in an Amsterdam concert. But then, she’ll just…soar.

Her roots were in the church—her father was a minister—and she shows it in all her work, but particularly in this interpretation of “Didn’t It Rain?” This is one of my favorite spirituals.

I don’t know why I love this so—her dropping the fur has something to do with it. So does Carole King’s reaction to this interpretation of her classic song. And the president’s.

She was, by the way, a masterful pianist.

And finally, at the end, look and listen to the audience. I love this part, too.