Al Green Tired of Being Alone: The Fifth-Try Hit
Al Green Tired of Being Alone gave him his first real pop hit, but it took five tries to get there.
He wrote it in about half an hour, the morning after a show in Detroit.
Then it sat unfinished for nearly two years.
Four other singles from the same album came out first, and none of them cracked the pop chart's upper half.
Producer Willie Mitchell almost did not let Green record it at all.
When the song finally reached radio in June 1971, it climbed to number 11.
It also reached number 4 in Britain and went gold on two continents.
The song that almost never came out became the record that built his career.
Al Green performing on The Mike Douglas Show, February 25, 1973.
Image credit: Photo courtesy of the Mike Douglas Show, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Al Green Tired of Being Alone Started With Thirty Minutes in a Detroit Motel Room
Toting a Song Around for Days
Al Green wrote the song late in 1968, not in a studio.
He had just finished a show in Detroit.
The idea came to him before dawn, at a motel somewhere in rural Michigan.
He finished the whole song in about thirty minutes.
Producer Willie Mitchell was not interested in Green's own material at first.
"I was toting my song around in my pocket for days on end, saying, 'Hey, I got a song,'" Green later said.
At the end of one session he finally pushed back: "Well, I still got a song."
Mitchell agreed to hear it.
Shelved From Green Is Blues
The Al Green profile on this site covers what happened to his career once this song took off.
But first, the song had to survive its own shelving.
It was cut once for 1969's Green Is Blues, then pulled after studio problems.
Mitchell and Green re-recorded it from scratch.
It finally landed on 1971's Al Green Gets Next to You instead.
Green later explained why he wrote it in the first place.
"My lady would leave me all the time," he said. "And I was nobody, you know what I mean? So I wrote this song for her."
Four Singles Came Before It
Al Green Gets Next to You came out in March 1971 on Willie Mitchell's Hi Records.
The label pulled four singles from it before Al Green Tired of Being Alone.
None of the First Four Cracked the Top 40
"You Say It" reached number 28 on the R&B chart in 1970 and never touched the Hot 100.
"Right Now, Right Now" did almost the same, peaking at number 23 R&B and missing the pop chart too.
"I Can't Get Next to You" did slightly better, reaching number 60 pop and number 11 R&B.
"Driving Wheel" barely moved, only bubbling under the Hot 100 at number 115.
| Single | Year | US Hot 100 | US R&B |
|---|---|---|---|
| You Say It | 1970 | Did not chart | #28 |
| Right Now, Right Now | 1970 | Did not chart | #23 |
| I Can't Get Next to You | 1970 | #60 | #11 |
| Driving Wheel | 1971 | #115 (Bubbling Under) | #46 |
| Tired of Being Alone | 1971 | #11 | #7 |
Al Green Tired of Being Alone was that fifth single, and the last one the album needed.
Curious how many other 70s songs took this long to find an audience? The Random 70s Song Generator turns up more than a few.
The Song That Finally Made Al Green a Pop Star
Al Green Tired of Being Alone reached radio in June 1971.
It climbed to number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100.
On the Soul Singles chart it went all the way to number 7.
In Britain it reached number 4, Green's strongest UK showing to that point in his career.
The single went gold in the United States, certified for a million copies sold.
It also went gold in the UK and platinum in New Zealand.
Songfacts credits it as the first of seven straight gold singles for Green.
Rolling Stone later ranked it number 293 on its 2004 list of the 500 greatest songs ever made.
That kind of long afterlife is common across Music of the 70s, but not every song gets there through five tries.
It stayed on the Hot 100 for 19 weeks total.
Why This Site's Own Data Shows 12, Not 11
This site's own song database lists Tired of Being Alone's billboard_peak as 12.
That number is not the song's real chart peak.
It is the song's rank on Billboard's year-end Hot 100 for 1971, a full-year tally rather than a weekly chart position.
The real weekly peak was number 11, confirmed by Wikipedia's chart data and by this same site's own Al Green artist-page recap.
| Metric | This site's year-end field | Real Billboard Hot 100 peak |
|---|---|---|
| Tired of Being Alone (1971) | #12 | #11 |
That kind of steady radio climb, not an instant chart-topper, is exactly the mood the Mood Song Matcher is built to surface.
Recorded With the Same Band That Built Let's Stay Together
Prefer to hear it before reading how it was made? Stream Tired of Being Alone on Listen Now.
The song was recorded at Royal Studios in South Memphis, the same room behind Let's Stay Together a year later.
Willie Mitchell produced it, same as almost everything Green cut in the 1970s.
- Al Jackson Jr.: drums
- Mabon "Teenie" Hodges: guitar
- Leroy Hodges: bass
- Charles Hodges: keyboards
- Wayne Jackson, Ed Logan, James Mitchell, Jack Hale: horns
Al Jackson Jr. also anchored Booker T. and the M.G.'s across town at Stax at the same time.
The Hodges brothers stayed Green's core rhythm section for the rest of the decade.
Al Green in a 1973 Hi Records trade advertisement. Image credit: Hi Records, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Song's Life After 1971
Green performed it live with the rock band Chicago on their 1973 TV special, Chicago in the Rockies.
That recording resurfaced decades later on the 2002 remastered reissue of the album Chicago VI.
Green would go back into the studio with the same core band that fall for Let's Stay Together, the song that made him a headliner.
The song kept turning up long after that too.
- The Scottish band Texas released a cover version in 1992.
- It appears in the films Dead Presidents (1995) and Love Don't Cost a Thing (2003).
- Netflix's Sex Education used it in a 2019 episode.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Al Green Tired of Being Alone about?
Al Green Tired of Being Alone is about being left behind by someone Green loved.
He wrote it about a real relationship, later saying the woman "would leave me all the time" and that he wrote the song for her.
The lyric stays with that one plain complaint from start to finish.
How did Al Green write Tired of Being Alone?
Al Green wrote it in about thirty minutes before dawn at a motel in rural Michigan, the morning after a show in Detroit.
Producer Willie Mitchell showed little interest in Green's own material at first.
Green carried the song around for days until he finally pushed back at the end of a session, saying, "Well, I still got a song."
Why did it take five singles before Al Green Tired of Being Alone became a hit?
Hi Records pulled four singles from the album Al Green Gets Next to You first.
"You Say It" and "Right Now, Right Now" never reached the Hot 100 at all.
"I Can't Get Next to You" stalled at number 60, and "Driving Wheel" only bubbled under at number 115.
Al Green Tired of Being Alone, released fifth, finally broke through at number 11.
Where was Tired of Being Alone recorded, and who played on it?
It was recorded at Royal Studios in South Memphis and produced by Willie Mitchell.
Al Jackson Jr. played drums, with Teenie Hodges on guitar, Leroy Hodges on bass, and Charles Hodges on keyboards.
A horn section of Wayne Jackson, Ed Logan, James Mitchell, and Jack Hale backed the band.
Did Tired of Being Alone chart outside the United States?
Al Green Tired of Being Alone reached number 4 on the UK Singles Chart and was certified gold there by the BPI.
It also went platinum in New Zealand.
In the US it peaked at number 11 on the Hot 100 and number 7 on the Soul Singles chart.
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