You Got Your Hooks In Me - The O'Jays

“You Got Your Hooks In Me” by The O’Jays is one of the most heart-wrenching ballads ever written. So rare is it an occasion a male will pour open his soul and show how vulnerable he actually is, especially when it comes down to a failed and dead relationship that he does not want to let go of.

The song opens up with “I just can't understand
For the life of me, When I see you, Yet every time you talk of leavin' me, I get so shook up, I don't know what to do.” Confusion and uncertainty have set in, his woman obviously does not love him but he is so attached and so much invested he doesn’t want her to leave. The man is just reserved to the fact his woman has her hooks in him, he is stuck he can’t break free, it hurts but he doesn’t care, he even goes so far as saying he actually “likes it” he keeps coming back for more.

The man then says “Every time I go behind your back, I tell my friends I’m leavin you, and when you question me about it, baby I swear what they’re sayin’ just ain’t true.” The man has had it he knows he is being shit on, he tells his friends it’s time for him to break from his woman. This can’t happen, the woman is the power broker in the relationship, she calls him on what he tells his friends. The man is too weak to admit he wants out. She has her hooks in him, he “is caught like a fish” a helpless feeling, the woman is the fisher, she has control of the fishing pole, she will decide when it’s over, the man can’t break free, he doesn’t want to, he likes it even though its killing him. A fish on a hook is powerless, it relies on the catcher to unhook it with the hopes of setting it free.

Eddie Levert’s vocals absolutely nail this track. The emotion he pours into it makes you feel like he is really in pain. If you don’t chills from this performance, check your pulse, you may not be alive. The production of this track along with the whole “Ship Ahoy” album which You Got Your Hooks In Me is the closing track of the first side by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff is superb. Gamble & Huff took R&B music to another level in the early 1970’s with their “Sound Of Philadelphia”.

You Got Your Hooks In Me – (Bunny Sigler)

I just can't understand for the life of me

What I see in you Yet every time you talk of leavin' me

I get so shook up, I don't know what to do

Oh, oh, baby, I guess you've got your hooks in me

And I, oh I, oh I'm caught like a fish

And, baby, I just can't break free

You know this thing is killin' me
I must like it or, or I wouldn't be here, baby

Every time I get behind your back

I tell my friends I'm leavin' you

And when you question me about it, baby

I swear what they're sayin' just ain't true, no, no 

Oh, oh, oh, baby, I guess you've got your hooks in me

And I, oh, oh, I'm caught like a fish, ya

And, baby, I just can't break free

You know this thing is killin' me, killin' me
Oh, baby, I guess you've got your hooks in me (I'm going to keep on loving you, loving you, loving you) Oh, baby, baby, baby, baby, I guess you've got your hooks in me

Oh, but, and I must like it, I must, I must like it, like it
Oh, baby, I guess you've got your hooks in me (Baby, what you do to me, what you do to me) Oh, baby, I guess you've got your hooks in me (I said woman, it's good to me, good to me, so good to me) And I like it, and I like it
Oh, baby, I guess you've got your hooks in me (I'm in love with you woman, and I don't want to quit) I just don't want to quit I want to hold you,

I want to hold you close to me
Oh, baby, I guess you've got your hooks in me

Oh sweet woman,

I love, I'm loving you

And I'm hooked, I'm hooked, oh baby, oh baby

Oh, baby
I got, I'm gonna get away

You got poor me hangin' on a string, darlin'

Oh, I must like this thing, woohoo

So woman, woman, do the things that you do

The way, the way you call my name, woman, I like
I'll be goin' around tellin' all my friends that I'm leavin'

No, but I ain't never goin' nowhere, no, no 
I said woman, I said woman

The way, the way you love me, way you love me 
I feel, feel, feel, feel like I feel, I want, got to have it
Oh, baby, I guess you've got your hooks in me 
Oh, baby, I guess you've got your hooks in me 
Oh, baby, I guess Little girl, you got me, you got me