Respect

www.last.fm/music/Aretha+Franklin/_/Respect

Analysis

Aretha Franklin's "Respect" voices women's choice during the '60s to take on new roles, other than being a housewife, and still be accepted by their husbands and peers. This new attitude came along with reemerging feminist ideas in the black community during the '60s.

The opening lines

(oo) What you want
(oo) Baby, I got
(oo) What you need
(oo) Do you know I got it?

show that even though women are deciding to take on different tasks, they will still be the same women. If anyhow their husbands or anyone treats them differently they will leave and go elsewhere. This is shown in the last few lines of the song:

You're runnin' out of foolin' (just a little bit)
And I ain't lyin' (just a little bit)
(re, re, re, re) 'spect
When you come home (re, re, re ,re)
Or you might walk in (respect, just a little bit)
And find out I'm gone (just a little bit)
I got to have (just a little bit)
A little respect (just a little bit)

The format in which the lyrics are written help paint the picture that the women is telling her husband what she will do for respect and what she would do without it. Without a male responder, the song then becomes informative instead of a type of persuasion. The women's act of "getting information across" to her husband and the rest of society creates a more demanding tone and thus leaves no room for questions as to whether women deserve respect or not.

Embodiment of Civil Rights Movement

The right to equality was the real issue during the Civil Rights Movement and in "Respect" the women's right to equality among their husbands and other members of society is the real issue. The way in which the song is presented also helps parallel it to the way in which blacks fought for their civil rights. In the movement, blacks informed people what was going on and demanded their rights, just like the women in the song are informing their husbands and the rest of society.