This song is now part of the

Heavy rotation of the R&B station where I work.

I caught it for the first time with a couple of team members about two weeks ago, researched it, and heard it good and proper even more recently.

Honestly, this has got be one of the weirdest, meanest, and flat-out worst songs I have ever heard.  The "story" of the song is that if McDaniels had any strength of character, any self-respect at all, he would dump his partner, forcing her (him?) to beg for him back as he walks out the door. But, our hero is not a Tower of Strength, so, the relationship, presumably, will continue.  (If I were his partner, I would dump him!)

Plus, the arrangement, with its hilarious fatuous horn part, is sickly and weak.  McDaniels hits his "Meeee" note with aplomb, but the rest of his singing performance is godawful campy, complete with ridiculous gasps before the last lines of the chorus.

Bill Withers wrote and performed something of a vaguely similar nature, Use Me, which is about a hundred miles better.

I hear Tower of Strength every day at work now.  It is not growing on me.  I like it less and less every time I hear it.

Ardent