I Only Meant Just To Wet My Feet. Provoked Thought

The Mighty Whispers were and Watts, California singing group that was born during atmosphere of a changing nation, a changing black community, a city of Oakland that was going to the center of attention during the Black Power and Black Arts Movement. If ever a group had come out at the right time and place in 1963, it was the Mighty Whispers. Invited in 1966 by Sly Stone to perform in the Bay Area. The Whispers became a fixture on the concert scene in Oakland. The members of the original Whispers were Wallace and Walter Scott, Marcus Hutson, Gordy Harmon, and Nicholas Caldwell. In 1972 Mickey Carson assisted in the production of what I feel was one of the iconic love songs ever written and performed. We simply don’t hear music like this song performed or produced like this song today.

The name of the song The Whispers released in 1972 was “I Only Meant Just To Wet My Feet”. This song simply captured the sense one has when coming into a relationship inquisitive but being pulled in by the force of the emotional bond between two souls.

I remember ONE significant line from one of Mickey Carson produced songs written for and performed by the WHISPERS in 1972. The lyrics were so powerful, so dynamic, so enduring, and have an everlasting sense of the power of love. We need to have music like this produced and sung in our black communities today. You see we are grappling with a sense of lost brotherly and sisterly love. Why don’t we understand the power of love? The lyric that captured my attention in 1972 as an 18-year-old young black and today as a 65-year-old black man is still so powerful.

“I said, I said I only meant just to wet my feet
But you pulled me in where all the waters of love run deep
Oh, this good feeling must have been sent from above
Cause you've got me walking on wall to wall love
Oh, you got me walking”

Who could ever forget that song.Thank you Mickey Carson and The Whispers for creating this iconic song. The Whispers are still performing 56 years after becoming a music group in Watts. However, the music and songs they wrote and performed are no longer on the Billboard Charts. The music that iconic during the period of the Black Power and Black Arts Movement has been replaced. Yet I can only think of songs like I Only Meant Just To Wet My Feet. It how songs like that inspired a youthful black nation that true change was possible. If you have a moment listen to that song today.