Music / Stand!

Feeling's getting stronger / Music's getting longer too / Music is flashin' me / I want to take you hiiiiiigher!

Stand! is the fourth album by Sly and the Family Stone, released in 1969 through Epic Records. Marking the band's breakthrough, it was one of the best-selling albums of the 1960s and included several landmark hits, among them "Sing A Simple Song", "I Want To Take You Higher", "Stand!" and "Everyday People".

In 2014 "Stand!" was added to the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically and aesthetically important."

Tracklist

Side One

1. "Stand" (3:08)
2. "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey" (5:58)
3. "I Want to Take You Higher" (5:22)
4. "Somebody's Watching You" (3:20)
5. "Sing A Simple Song" (3:56)

Side Two

1. "Everyday People" (2:21)
2. "Sex Machine" (13:45)
3. "You Can Make It If You Try" (3:37)

Personnel

• Sly Stone: vocals, organ, guitar, piano, harmonica, vocoder, bass guitar
• Freddie Stone: vocals, guitar
• Larry Graham: vocals, bass guitar
• Rose Stone: vocals, piano, keyboard
• Cynthia Robinson: trumpet, vocals, background vocals
• Jerry Martini: saxophone, background vocals
• Greg Errico: drums, background vocals
• Little Sister (Vet Stone, Mary McCreary, Elva Mouton): background vocals

Tropes that want to take you higher:

• David vs. Goliath:
  Stand! There's a midget standing tall/ and a giant beside him about to fall.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul": "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey", where the band asks people not to call each other by derogatory names, but live together.
• Epic Rocking: The 13:45 minutes long "Sex Machine".
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: "Sing A Simple Song" about singing a simple song.
• Excited Episode Title!!: "Stand!"
• "Everybody Laughs" Ending: Near the end of "Sex Machine" other band members can be heard laughing.
• Funk: This is a Sly & The Family Stone album after all...
• Hymn to Music: "I Want To Take You Higher" and "Sing A Simple Song".
• Intercourse with You: "Sex Machine".
• Last Chorus Slow-Down: "Sex Machine" ends like this.
• Limited Lyrics Song and N-Word Privileges: "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey".
  Don't call me nigger, whitey
  Don't call whitey, nigger
  Well, I went down across the country
  Ana I heard the voices ring
  People talkin' softly to each other
  And not a word could change a thing
• One-Word Title: "Stand!"
• Pep-Talk Song: "Stand!" and "You Can Make It If You Try".
  • "Stand"
  Don't you know that you are free?
  Well at least in your mind if you want to be
  • "You Can Make It If You Try"
  You can make it if you try
  You can make it if you try
  Push a little harder
  Think a little deeper
  Don't let the plastic bring you down
• The Power of Rock: Despite having sexual and drug-induced innuendos "I Want To Take You Higher" is actually about the joy of music. "Sing A Little Song" is another number in this vein.
  You're in trouble when you find it's hard for you to smile
  A simple song might make it better for a little while
• Properly Paranoid: "Somebody's Watching You", though it is meant as a metaphor for a Supreme Being watching over from the skies.
• Protest Song: "Everyday People" and "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey" address racism and call for multiculturalism, peace and harmony.
  There is a yellow one
  That won't accept the black one
  That won't accept the red one
  That won't accept the white one
  Different strokes
  For different folks
  And so on and so on
  And scooby dooby dooby
  Oh sha sha
  I am everyday people
• Record Producer: Sly Stone.
• Shout-Out:
  • Tracks from this album have been covered by artists as diverse as The Supremes, The Temptations, Dusty Springfield, Prince, Aretha Franklin, INXS, Joan Jett, Four Tops, The Jackson 5, IkeAndTinaTurner, Jimi Hendrix, Pearl Jam, Belle and Sebastian and Miles Davis and sampled by rap artists from Ice Cube, LL Cool J, The Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, Cypress Hill, Gorillaz, Public Enemy, Tupac Shakur, Wu-Tang Clan, Digital Underground, TLC to Arrested Development.
  • The "ho yeah!" line in "Sing A Simple Song" has been sampled by Public Enemy in "Party For Your Right To Fight" in It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back (1988), "Brothers Gonna Work It Out" and "Fight The Power" from Fear of a Black Planet (1990) and in "Jazz We've Got" from The Low End Theory (1991) by A Tribe Called Quest. The drums have been sampled in "19-2000 (Soulchild Remix)" by Gorillaz from Gorillaz.
  • Public Enemy sampled "Stand" during "Who Stole The Soul?" from Fear of a Black Planet (1990).
  • The line different strokes for different folks in "Everyday People" later inspired the title of the sitcom Diff'rent Strokes.
• The Something Song and Song of Song Titles: "Sing A Simple Song".
• Talking in Your Sleep: "Sing A Simple Song"
  I'm talkin', talkin', talkin', talkin', talkin' in my sleep
• Title Track: "Stand"

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