The 1960s File Feature
Take Time To Know Her
Take Time To Know Her: Percy Sledge's 1968 Southern Soul Classic "Take Time to Know Her" was written by Steve Davis and recorded by Percy Sledge in the secon…
01 The Story
Take Time To Know Her: Percy Sledge's 1968 Southern Soul Classic
"Take Time to Know Her" was written by Steve Davis and recorded by Percy Sledge in the second half of 1967 for Atlantic Records, building on the reputation Sledge had established with "When a Man Loves a Woman" in 1966. That debut single had been one of the most remarkable chart performances of the mid-1960s, spending two weeks at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and becoming one of the defining recordings of the southern soul genre. The pressure on Sledge and his label to find material that could approach that standard shaped the recordings he made throughout 1966 and 1967, and "Take Time to Know Her" emerged from that creative period as one of the strongest songs in his catalogue.
The recording was made at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the facility that had produced "When a Man Loves a Woman" and that had become one of the most important recording environments in American popular music. The Muscle Shoals house band, often referred to as the Swampers, provided the tight, deeply rhythmic backing that characterized the facility's sound, and producer Quin Ivy, who had overseen much of Sledge's work for Atlantic, shaped the arrangement to showcase the singer's remarkable tenor voice. The orchestral sweetening applied to the production gave the track a lush, sophisticated texture that helped it connect with both soul and adult contemporary radio formats.
Atlantic Records released "Take Time to Know Her" as a single in early 1968, and it entered the Billboard Hot 100 on March 16, 1968 at position 74. The song climbed steadily and quickly through the spring weeks, moving from 66 on March 23, to 48 on March 30, to 30 by April 6. The ascent continued through April and May, and the song reached its peak of number 11 on the Hot 100 during the week of May 25, 1968, completing a chart run of 14 weeks that demonstrated exceptional staying power for a singles release in that competitive period.
The peak position of number 11 placed "Take Time to Know Her" among Sledge's strongest commercial performances, second only to "When a Man Loves a Woman" in terms of Hot 100 penetration. It also crossed over successfully to the R&B chart, where it performed even better, reflecting the deep roots the recording had in the Black radio audience that had first discovered Sledge's voice. The simultaneous success on both charts was characteristic of the Atlantic soul recordings from Muscle Shoals during this period, which regularly bridged the gap between R&B and mainstream pop audiences.
Percy Sledge was born in Leighton, Alabama in 1940 and had worked as a hospital orderly while performing locally before his music career took off. His voice was one of the most distinctive in southern soul, a warm and slightly rough tenor with an almost painful emotional directness that suited the confessional style of the genre perfectly. He understood intuitively how to inhabit a lyric about romantic relationships, bringing a combination of vulnerability and conviction that made his recordings feel genuinely lived-in rather than performed.
The song appeared on his 1968 album Take Time to Know Her, which Atlantic released to capitalize on the single's success. The album consolidated his position as one of the label's important soul artists, and it continued to circulate in the R&B market through the late 1960s. Sledge would continue recording for Atlantic through the early 1970s, though he never again matched the commercial impact of his debut single. "Take Time to Know Her" remains the most significant follow-up in his catalogue, a song that stands on its own merits as a piece of southern soul craft rather than merely as a sequel to his greatest hit.
The Muscle Shoals connection gave the recording its specific sonic identity. The combination of the rhythm section's deep pocket, the horn arrangements that punctuate the verses, and Sledge's expressive vocal phrasing produced something genuinely beautiful, a record that captured the southern soul aesthetic at a point of maximum development before the genre began to fragment and evolve in the early 1970s. The song has appeared on numerous Percy Sledge compilations and retrospectives and continues to receive radio play on oldies and classic soul formats.
02 Song Meaning
Patience as Love: The Meaning of Take Time To Know Her
"Take Time to Know Her" is built on a deceptively simple piece of wisdom: that the failure to understand a romantic partner before making permanent commitments leads inevitably to heartbreak. The narrator of the song speaks from a position of hard-won experience, addressing himself or a composite listener who has made the mistake of rushing into a relationship without taking the time to genuinely know the person he was pursuing. The song functions as both a warning and a lament, a piece of advice delivered too late to prevent the pain that motivated it.
The theme of patience in romantic life was a recurring preoccupation of southern soul in the 1960s. The genre drew heavily on gospel music's emphasis on spiritual patience and endurance, and it translated those values into the secular realm of love and relationships. Songs in this tradition often featured narrators speaking from the aftermath of romantic failure, reflecting on what went wrong and distilling the experience into usable wisdom. Percy Sledge was particularly well-suited to this mode of address because his vocal delivery conveyed genuine emotional weight without tipping into melodrama.
Steve Davis's lyric is precise about the nature of the mistake being described. The problem is not that the relationship was wrong from the start, or that the woman was unworthy of love. The problem is that the narrator moved too quickly, projecting his own desires onto a person he had not yet understood as a complete individual. This makes the song's lesson more nuanced than simple romantic caution; it is specifically about the tendency to see what we want to see in another person rather than who they actually are.
The Muscle Shoals production context shapes the song's emotional register in important ways. The arrangement is warm and unhurried, almost deliberately paced to embody the message of the lyric. The orchestral elements suggest the weight of feeling involved without overwhelming the vocal performance, and Percy Sledge's tenor moves through the melody with the careful attention to nuance that distinguishes his best recordings from the more theatrically emotive performances that other soul singers might have brought to the same material.
The song sits within a broader tradition of southern soul narratives about the complexity of romantic relationships, a tradition that includes recordings by Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, and the other artists who worked in and around Muscle Shoals during the same period. What distinguishes "Take Time to Know Her" within that tradition is its focus on the cognitive and emotional work of genuine understanding rather than simply on the intensity of feeling. Most love songs celebrate the feeling; this one celebrates the discipline of paying attention.
Across the decades since its 1968 release, the song's message has retained its relevance because the dynamic it describes is perennial. The speed at which modern relationships often develop has, if anything, made the song's central lesson more urgent rather than less. The combination of a timeless theme, a precisely crafted lyric, and one of the most expressive vocal performances in southern soul history gives "Take Time to Know Her" a staying power that extends well beyond its original chart moment.
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