I Need Your Sweet Inspiration

Why a dusty little soul single buried under fifty years of rockist amnesia just might save us all.

What a Satisfied Woman Might Do

I need your sweet inspiration

I need you here on my mind

Every hour of the day…

It came out of nowhere one night a few months back, while I was editing ‘Stack subscriber Glen Matlock’s interview for my book. And I needed it.

Without your sweet inspiration

The lonely hours of the night

Just don't go my way…

It was past midnight, I was buried up to my follicles in tales of punk rock glory. And there it was: A burst of barking Telecaster, a cooking rhythm section, and four gospel voices blending just right…a secular hymn about making sweet, sweet love. No, this is not about FUCKING! This is a psalm to love and lust all rolled into one. It has that reverence, but instead of pointing to the heavens, it’s pointing right to the heart. And a little further south. It’s sexy without being sleazy, powerful without being preachy.

A woman in love need sweet inspiration

And honey that's all I ask

You know that's all I ask from you…

It was just what I needed to lift me up in the midnight hour, keep me going, coincidentally as Matlock began talking about the impact of ‘60s soul and r&b on his own work, in the Sex Pistols and beyond. Few realize Matlock always had a sneaky soul side, a love for Motown grooves that seeped into the Pistols’ raucousness without anyone noticing. And that was all it took for things to click. God, Lester Bangs or someone/something prompted Amazon Music to give me the right push to make it to 1AM: “Here, son: your favorite soul record! You can do it!”

It was the perfect shot of gentle adrenaline: “Sweet Inspiration” by The Sweet Inspirations, a powerhouse quartet who harmonized with everyone from Elvis to Aretha Franklin. Their leader? Cissy Houston—Dionne and Dee Dee Warwick’s aunt, and mother to future r&b wunderkind Whitney Houston. Sadly, you probably know neither the track nor the performers. These days, it’s buried in the dusty corners of oldies radio playlists. Actually, not even those, considering oldies radio left the ‘50s and ‘60s behind maybe 20 years ago. But in ’68, “Sweet Inspiration” was unstoppable.

I gotta have your sweet inspiration, yeah

You know there just ain't no telling

What a satisfied woman might do…

A Perfect Record

Soul music, at its core, is all about intersecting the sacred and the profane. It’s taking gospel’s passion and intensity and channeling it into something unpolished, living, and undeniably physical. And “Sweet Inspiration” is a perfect record, that beautiful convergence between the performers, the songwriters, the musicians, and—ultimately—the song. It should be playing 24 hours a day somewhere other than my room in Austin, Texas.

To start with, what about those performers? Cissy Houston, Estelle Brown, Myrna Smith, and Sylvia Shemwell were absolute pros, singing backup for literally everyone. Or at least everyone that counted, such as Aretha and Wilson Pickett. That mix of gospel roots and pop savvy made their harmonies feel almost sacred, even when singing about heartbreak or passion. Atlantic Records A&R legend Jerry Wexler certainly thought so, enough to give them their own record contract.

So, you’d think sending Tom Dowd to Memphis in 1967, to shepherd The Sweet Inspirations into Chips Moman’s American Sound Studios—the petri dish for every Memphis soul record not brewed at Stax—would result in pure gold, right? Dowd was no hack: he was the architect of Atlantic’s wildest miracles, the man who’d brought symmetry to chaos for everyone from Coltrane to Cream. If he couldn’t get this session cooking, something was deeply off in the room.

According to Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, who just happened by the session, it was.

Dowd, in Penn and Oldham’s view, was feeding The Sweet Inspirations mediocre, uninspired material. They sat there listening and basically said: “This isn’t working. ”

Penn and Oldham knew from whence they spoke. Songwriting mensches, they wrote just about every other great song in the '60s, or at least the ones recorded in Memphis: "Do Right Woman, Do Right Man" for Aretha; the haunted, obliterated "Dark End of the Street" for the haunted, obliterated James Carr; teen pop-soul tour de force "Cry Like a Baby" for The Box Tops, featuring 17-year-old Alex Chilton; the sublime "I'm Your Puppet" by James & Bobby Purify.

Those two could compose, okay?

They disappeared into some out-of-the-way room in American for about 20–30 minutes, and returned with “Sweet Inspiration,” tailor-made for Cissy and the group. Penn and Oldham offered salvation, in the form of fresh lyrics and arrangement, and that became the take. It in turn became The Sweet Inspirations’ first hit, reaching #18 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968.

It was nothing for Penn and Oldham. It’s like they were smirking at Dowd, “You jokers brought in dead weight, so we wrote the damn classic ourselves in a coffee break.” They just thought about the group’s name, and came up with this sublime ode to the holiest of sexual healing. And like that sweet, sweet love being made in the words, “Sweet Inspiration” could heal the sick, raise the dead, and make true believers and sinners alike bark and speak in tongues.

Elvis heard it on the radio the following year, as he was assembling his band for his landmark first Las Vegas dates and instructed his team to find those singers! He wanted that gospel power that was dominating the airwaves surrounding him!

He had to have that sweet inspiration, too.

Shockingly, he never let the ladies take a showcase walk through their classic in his live sets. But during the midnight show August 20, 1970, while introducing them onstage in Las Vegas, Elvis spontaneously broke into “Sweet Inspiration.” Cissy, Estelle, Myrna and Sylvia fell right in with him, as naturally as could be, as James Burton and the rhythm section locked in. It sounded perfect, like they’d been rehearsing for weeks.

They hadn’t. It was a one-off, spur-of-the-moment thing they never did again. They really should have.

The Heart of Soul Music

What makes “Sweet Inspiration” so killer is soul music’s own deep, delicious secret: it’s secular gospel. It’s a celebration of love, passion, and flesh-and-blood connection, wrapped in that naked, emotional power.

“I need your sweet inspiration” is not a mere hook or catchy chorus. It’s a plea directly injected into your veins. It makes “Sweet Inspiration” the kind of song that sticks with you, a core-shaker. It doesn’t point to heaven. It’s got its eyes on something more intimate, more vulnerable.

“Sweet Inspiration” wasn’t some lightweight pop song, but an unmanicured hymn to fucking, and about the healing that comes with it. And maybe that’s the secret behind soul music itself: the sacred and the profane, the divine and the dirty, wrapped up in a way that makes you shiver. It’s the joy of surrender, of connecting with someone so deeply that it feels like you’re touching something bigger than both of you. Because soul music’s power lies in the conflict. It wrestles with God and your own desires, the way the track pulls you in and then makes you lose yourself in it.

For me, “Sweet Inspiration” came at the perfect time. I’d been drowning in punk rock, buried under interviews and endless hours of work. But this song—their voices, Cissy’s lead, the electric harmonies—cut through the fog. It wasn’t just the sound that grabbed me, though; it was the feeling. That combination of joy and pain, of needing and giving, was exactly what I needed.

Soul music was never just about the sound; it’s about the emotion, the way it makes you feel alive, even when you’re drowning. The Sweet Inspirations knew that. They sang like they understood exactly what it felt like to love, to ache, and to be lifted up.

And damn, if it didn’t do that for me. It got me through that night, and countless nights after that, reminding me that sometimes all you need is a song, a spark of inspiration, to keep going. Because in the end, it’s not just about the words or the melody. It’s about what it makes you feel.

But what if the notes and words Spooner and Oldham put into Cissy, Estelle, Myrna, and Sylvia’s mouths actually dripped of irony?! Yeah, this is “Sweet Inspiration,” and we all want that sweetness. But the sweet stuff hurts—that’s what makes it real. What if the composers hid this stealth bomb within, and that sneaky incendiary device is the other side? The fall? The times when love isn’t inspiration, but something that shoves you into the dirt?

Somehow, I doubt it. “Sweet Inspiration” is a celebration, a joyous romp. It is about finding your redemption in the arms of he or she who loves you—really, truly loves you. It’s about lovin’ your way deep into night’s blackest minutes, then rolling over in the morning, after your paramour’s rocked you to your core. And he or she opens the curtains, and you both bathe in the glorious dawn’s early light. And everything is alright….

The Sweet Inspirations’ Magic

So you’ve got this perfect collision of the perfect song meeting the perfect singers, delivering that perfectly desanctified gospel muscle to this immaculate ode to good, good lovin’. And perfect collisions are rarely, if ever, quiet.

“Sweet Inspiration” might have been more muffled had the delivery system not been so beautiful. Those voices couldn’t have been better suited to sell that lyric. Or was it that the words were custom-written for those throats?

What defines soul is how it lets the sacred touch the sweaty. “Sweet Inspiration” embodies that. It’s an ode to love and lust all rolled into one. It burns with that reverence, but instead of pointing to the heavens, it’s pointing right to the heart…and maybe a little south of that too.

That’s why it works so well. You can feel the gospel roots in those harmonies, but the lyrics and delivery are straight-up about human connection, the kind that makes you shiver and grin like an idiot. It’s pure, unfiltered emotion, and it doesn’t try to hide that love can feel a bit like a religious experience.

That’s soul music in a nutshell, right? Taking the spirit and making it personal, making it relatable, making it hit you right where it counts. It’s no wonder that song gets to me: It holds that perfect balance of worship and want.

It’s because of those harmonies! They don’t just blend—they intertwine and build this wave of sound that just washes over you. You can’t help but smile because it feels so damn genuine and life-affirming. It’s like the music itself is reaching out and giving you a hug. There's something almost tender about it. Cissy, Estelle, Myrna, and Sylvia just pour their souls into it, like they’re testifying, but with this undercurrent of joy that makes you feel uplifted and wrecked at the same time.

You can’t force that kind of magic. It’s one of those tracks where every piece just fell into place. This is why it gets to you like that: “Sweet Inspiration” is a reminder that sometimes music doesn’t need to be analyzed. It just needs to be felt.

Yet, here I am, spilling 1,961 words-and-counting on a nearly forgotten soul record….

I Got The Power, Every Hour Of The Day

So, why “Sweet Inspiration”? Why now? Why am I obsessing over this ghost of a track—this dusty little soul single buried under fifty years of rockist amnesia—and resurrecting it like a goddamn tent revival preacher who’s been screwin’ in the pews? Why does this combination of reverence and unvarnished feeling feel so timeless, like John Coltrane choking on his own ecstasy or Lou Reed writing prayers in smack blood?

Because this bundle of sweat, ache, and joy keeps vibrating. It doesn’t matter that the oldies station programmers who curate every generation's memories have forsaken this sublime nugget that once dominated everything for nearly two years straight. “Sweet Inspiration” lives and breathes, because it’s a love letter left behind with the ink still wet and the sheets still warm.

It’s the sorta sermon best delivered by sexy, soulful ladies fronting a shit-hot Memphis rhythm section. It’ll get you through the night, and most of the day as well. It’s that rush of hormones and joyous, desirable, post-coital ache, translated into sound.

It’s raw power, beautifully wielded: I got the power, every hour of the day….

Cissy and the ladies said it – it’ll help you go on living, keep on giving this way.

Blessed be the orgasm! Praise Jesus! Amen….

Postscript: The Ikettes’ Mirror Universe Remix

It was like I was watching “Mirror, Mirror,” the Season Two OG Star Trek episode written by Jerome Bixby, centered around that transporter malfunction, and Spock had a goatee and shit.

I was rockin’ around YouTube, looking for the appropriate clips for this magnum opus, when I saw it, bigger than life:

“The Ikettes - Sweet Inspiration (Live Video Mix 1971)”

Ohhhhh, we’ve GOT to hear THIS!

The Ikettes, the howling, gyrating background vocalists of The Ike & Tina Turner Revue, were always a bit rougher, stripped-down—less church, more chili house soul brawl. They’re best-known for a 1962 hit they had on their own, “I’m Blue (The Gong Gong Song). ” which sounded like a Shirelles track recorded in a Tijuana bordello. They were a girl group who fucked. And liked it. And if their man broke their hearts, they’d cut his ass up.

So, here they are, “three very bold soul sisters,” as the emcee introduces them in The Netherlands in 1971, tearing the tail off of “Sweet Inspiration!”

You can hear it: The Ikettes took “Sweet Inspiration” and drag-raced it. Ike and the Revue cranked the tempo, played it a little more raggedy and down-home, playing the groove dirty. Ike Turner wielded a Stratocaster like a switchblade, and he drove the core riff straight to Hell. That guitar is filthy. It needs a parental advisory sticker and an exorcism.

The rhythm is pure pelvic thrust, James Brown and Elvis unhinged. The whole thing is STANKETY! It’s funkier than two-week-old, unwashed ass, and juicier than slow-cooked ribs.

The Ikettes’ “Sweet Inspiration” is dangerous soul. Like, "snatch your man and burn your church shoes" soul. They’re not asking for inspiration—they’re taking it. And look at that middle breakdown! They don’t need no damn preacher. They are the altar.

If The Sweet Inspirations’ original was a psalm to orgasm, then The Ikettes removed every atom of sanctification. Their “Sweet Inspiration” is flat-out a song about FUCKING! They’re not suggesting anything. They are flat-out testifying about gettin’ laid and gettin’ saved at the same time. You don’t cover “Sweet Inspiration” like this unless you’ve been there and left the sheets damp.

If The Sweet Inspirations blessed it, The Ikettes claimed it.

Same song, same bones, two versions of the same ritual. But one opens heaven’s gate, while the other breaks into it with a bassline and a grind. One says “please,” the other hollers, “PUT YOUR BACK INTO IT, BABY!! HALLELUJAH!!” It’s not sweet inspiration anymore. It's sweaty instruction. It’s not foreplay. It’s instructional liturgy. The Ikettes weren’t asking for love. They were commanding it to come correct.

“Sweet Inspiration,” in The Ikettes’ hands, is not clean gospel. It’s dirty divinity. And it’s beautiful.

Will it replace The Sweet Inspirations’ original? No—that record is perfect. But if I wanna hear “Sweet Inspiration,” stickier and more hormone-drenched? I know where to find it.

Can I get an “amen”?!

And Now I Need *Your* Sweet Inspiration!

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I’ve told you what “Sweet Inspiration” did for me.
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