ain't too proud to beg

I -- KNOW -- you wanna leave me --





But I re - FUSE to let you go --





If I have to BEG -- and plead
for your sympathy,





I don't mind, 'cause you
mean that MUCH to me,


Ain't too proud to BEG,


sweet darlin'
Please don't leave me, girl, don't you go
Ain't to proud to PLEA - EAD, baby baby,
Please don't leave me, girl, don't you go ...


[When former Minnesota ("Minneh - saoh - tah") Governor Jesse Ventura came out with a book about his life (how did we live, before that??) the title was I Ain't Got Time To Bleed, and it made me think of that song --


"Ain't Too Proud To Beg"


"Ain't Got Time To Bleed" ...


I did not read Jesse Ventura's book, at the time, but I did start playing The Big Chill soundtrack on the cassette player in my car because it had the Temptations' original version of this song.


Now I hear a cryin' man,
Is half a man -- with no-o sense of pride
But if I have to cry to keep you,
I don't mind weepin'
if it'll keep you by my side


Ain't too proud to beg, sweet darlin'
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Ain't too proud to plead, baby, baby
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go


If I have to sleep on your doorstep
All night and day
Just to keep you from walkin' away
Let your friends laugh,
even this I can stand
'Cause I want to keep you,
any way I can


Ain't too proud to beg, sweet darlin'
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Ain't to proud to plead, baby, baby
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go


Now I've got a love so deep
in the pit of my heart
And each day it grows more and more
I'm not ashamed to come and
plead to you baby
If pleadin' keeps you from
Walkin' out that door!


Ain't too proud to beg, you know it sweet darlin'
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Ain't too proud to plead, baby, baby
Please don't leave me girl, don't you go
Baby, baby, baby, baby (sweet darling)


----------------------------


"Ain't Too Proud to Beg"


Recorded by The Temptations





1966


Written by Norman Whitfield and Edward Holland, Jr.


Produced by Norman Whitfield


Number 13, Billboard pop chart


Number one, Billboard R & B charts, for 8 non-consecutive weeks


Motown Records' Gordy label


album:  Get Ready





----------------------------------
----------------------------------


The Rolling Stones are fans of the Temptations, recording two Temptations hits, that I know of -- "Just My Imagination," and "Ain't Too Proud To Beg."  The latter appeared on the Stones' 1974 album, It's Only Rock and Roll.


Online, one can play "Ain't Too Proud..."
the Temptations original,
and
the Stones version.


The R. Stones one that appears most readily when one "Googles" is, I think, a music video -- that's ok, but I prefer film footage from a live concert in front of an audience -- (I don't know why, music videos have always seemed kind of lame, & "plastic," to me).


Rolling Stones' concert performance of this song from July 13th 1975 at the Los Angeles Forum, preserved and released on a DVD titled From The Vault, would be recommended...(the energy of that whole concert is not to be believed...)








________________________________


________________________________


The Temptations onstage in 1963 --





...at the Apollo Theater.


Located, 253 West 125th St., btw Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard and Frederick Douglass Boulevard in the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.





Built, 1914.


-30-