Edit for headphones, February 2024. The song was recorded in April 1967 at American Sound Studio in Memphis in the sessions for the Sweet Inspiration's self-titled debut album produced by Tommy Cogbill and Tom Dowd. Spooner Oldham and Dan Penn had observed the recording session for two tracks intended for The Sweet Inspirations album, which moved Oldham to suggest to Penn that they two could write a stronger song for the group.
Oldham: "As we walked [from the studio] up the steps to [the company's] offices, Dan said: 'You got any ideas?' I said: 'What's wrong with 'Sweet Inspiration'?"
Working with a single guitar Oldham and Penn wrote "Sweet Inspiration" in between an hour to ninety minutes upstairs, then returned to the studio and ran through the song for the Sweet Inspirations and the other session personnel, Penn singing the song to Oldham's guitar accompaniment.
Producer Tom Dowd called for a lunch break.
Dan Penn: "Spooner had [the opening rolling guitar] lick down so good the musicians wouldn't go eat...They knew by what was happening we could [immediately] cut [the track]" which was completed in a single take.
Producer Dowd and his coterie on returning to the studio from their lunch break were played the completed track of "Sweet Inspiration".
Oldham: "We basically gave 'em a gift. It was fun to see a creative idea come to fruition in about three hours time."
Issued as the fourth single from The Sweet Inspirations album, "Sweet Inspiration" reached a Billboard Hot 100 peak of #18 in the spring of 1968 also ranking as high as #5 on Billboard's R&B chart.
Source of this edit is the stereo version on the various artists album "1965-Only Rock 'n Roll-1969 - #1 Radio Hits" (1996 catalog nr. opcd-1732).
SWEET INSPIRATION
(Dan Penn (born Wallace Daniel Pennington)/Linden "Spooner" Oldham)
I need your sweet inspiration
I need you here on my mind
every hour of the day
without your sweet inspiration
the lonely hours of the night
just don't go my way
a woman in love
needs sweet inspiration
and honey that's all I ask, you know
that's all I ask from you
I gotta have your sweet inspiration, yeah
you know there just ain't no tellin'
what a satisfied woman might do
the way you call me baby, baby
is such a sweet inspiration
the way you call me darlin' darlin'
sets my heart to skating
and if I'm out in the rain, baby
and in a bad situation
you know I just 'a reaching back in my mind
and there I find your sweet, sweet inspiration
inspiration, yeah
oh what a power
and I've got the power
every hour of the day
I need your sweet inspiration, yeah
to go on living
to keep on giving this way
I need your sweet inspiration
sweet inspiration, sweet inspiration, sweet inspiration
sweet, sweet, inspiration (Igoota have your)
sweet, sweet, inspiration (yeah give me your)
sweet inspiration, sweet inspiration, sweet inspiration
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