January 13, 2023 —– Chart #178
Hey folks, welcome to another edition of Chart of the Week. We’re sticking with the 70’s this week with a hit from a band with native American heritage. “Come and Get Your Love” is a song by American rock band Redbone. The song was originally released as a promo track under the name “Hail” and was later featured on their fifth album, Wovoka (1973), under its current name. The song was released as the album’s first single the following year. Written and produced by band members Pat and Lolly Vegas, it is one of the band’s most successful singles. It made them the first Native American band to reach the top five on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching number five. The song later appeared on many “greatest hits” albums released by the band, as well as on numerous compilation albums of the 1970s. A music video was released in 2020.
The single cut is significantly shorter, with the album version featuring an introductory slow part, plus a longer repeated coda. Most radio stations rarely play the latter. The song features a prominent part for electric sitar. A shorter DJ re-service edit of the single version is mainly distinguished by a lead vocal. During George Michael’s tenure as a disc jockey on New York’s WABC radio from September 1974 to November 1979, he would routinely begin his Friday night show with this song which he dubbed the “weekend national anthem”.
“Come and Get Your Love” spent 18 weeks in the Top 40 and landed as the fourth-most popular song on the Hot 100 for 1974. The single was certified gold by the RIAA on April 22, 1974, which indicates that it had shipped over a million copies in North America. The song is Redbone’s highest charting single and one of two Top 40 hits by the band.
In 2014, “Come and Get Your Love” experienced a resurgence in popularity when it was featured in the Marvel Studios film Guardians of the Galaxy as one of the songs on a mixtape made for the protagonist Peter Quill. It was also included on the film’s soundtrack album, which reached the top spot on the Billboard 200 chart. In 2015, “Come and Get Your Love” was used on Netflix’s adult animated sitcom F Is for Family on its theme song with Redbone. It was also heard and reused in the 2019 film Avengers: Endgame.
How about this live performance on Midnight Special: https://youtu.be/Dj0drevGOgA
In August of 2021, the song was prominently featured in Season 1, Episode 5, “Come and Get Your Love”, of Reservation Dogs on the streaming service Hulu, with the band Redbone performing the song at the end of the episode.
Keep rockin my friends,
Stan Bradshaw