Please Send Me Someone to Love

Last updated
"Please Send Me Someone to Love"
Please percymayfield.jpg
Single by Percy Mayfield
from the album The Best of Percy Mayfield
B-side "Strange Things Happening"
ReleasedSept. 1950 [1]
RecordedAugust 16, 1950
Universal, Hollywood, California
Genre R&B, blues ballad
Length2:53
Label Specialty Records
Songwriter(s) Percy Mayfield
Producer(s) Art Rupe
Percy Mayfield singles chronology
"Please Send Me Someone to Love"
(1950)
"Lost Love (Baby, Please Come Back to Me)"
(1951)

"Please Send Me Someone to Love" is a blues ballad, written and recorded by American blues and soul singer Percy Mayfield in 1950, for Art Rupe's Specialty Records. It was on the Billboard's R&B chart for 27 weeks and reached the number-one position for two weeks; it was Mayfield's most successful song. [2]

Contents

Song background

It has been called a "multilayered universal lament". [3] Mayfield sang it in a soft ballad style. Its appeal lay in the sensitivity of its lyrics in juxtaposing an awareness of a world in conflict with a personal expression of the need for love. [4] Sung in Mayfield's gentle, suave vocal style, the lyrics were a combination of a romantic love ballad and a social message against discrimination. [5]

Track listing

US 7"Vinyl [6]

  1. "Please Send Me Someone to Love" (2:50)
  2. "Strange Things Happening" (2:49)

Charts

Chart (1950)Peak
position
US Billboard Hot 100 [7] 26
US Hot R&B Sides (Billboard)1

Johnny Diesel and the Injectors version

"Please Send Me Someone to Love"
Please Send Me Someone to Love by Johnny Diesel and the Injectors.jpg
Single by Johnny Diesel and the Injectors
from the album The Delinquents (soundtrack)
B-side "Who's for Better" (Live)
ReleasedJanuary 1990
Length4:17
Label Chrysalis
Songwriter(s) Percy Mayfield
Producer(s) Terry Manning
Johnny Diesel and the Injectors singles chronology
"Since I Fell for You"
(1989)
"Please Send Me Someone to Love"
(1990)
"Love Junk"
(1991)

In 1989, the Australian ARIA award-winning rock band Johnny Diesel and the Injectors recorded the song for the soundtrack of the film The Delinquents . It was released as a single and peaked at number 11 on the Australian ARIA chart [8] and was the 87th biggest-selling single in 1990. [9]

Track listing

  1. "Please Send Me Someone to Love" (4:17)
  2. "Who's for Better" (3:40)
  3. "Thang 1" (3:15)

Other versions

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References

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  2. Whitburn, Joel (2004). Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942–2004. Record Research. p. 385.
  3. "West coast artists – Percy Mayfield" . Retrieved 2006-11-06.
  4. Gillett, Charlie (1996). The Rise of Rock and Roll (2nd ed.). New York: Da Capo Press. p. 146. ISBN   0-306-80683-5.
  5. Shaw, Arnold (1978). Honkers and Shouters . New York: Macmillan. p.  193. ISBN   0-02-061740-2.
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  7. Whitburn, Joel (2003). Top Pop Singles 1955–2002. Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin: Record Research. p.  68. ISBN   0-89820-155-1.
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  9. "The ARIA Australian Top 100 Singles Chart 1990 (61–100) (from The ARIA Report No. 50)". Imgur.com (original document published by ARIA). Retrieved 10 October 2016.
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