Come And Get Your Love

"Come and Get Your Love" is a song by the American rock band Redbone. The song was originally released as a promo track under the name "Hail" and was later featured on their fifth album, Wovoka (1973), under its current name. The song was released as the album's first single that year. Written and produced by band members Pat and Lolly Vegas, it is one of the band's most successful singles. It made them the first Native American band to reach the top five on the US Billboard Hot 100, reaching number five.

Billboard and Cash Box magazines praised the song when it was released. Interest in the song increased in the 2010s after it was featured in the 2014 film Guardians of the Galaxy, its threequel, and as the theme song for the sitcom F Is for Family.

Composition

The lyrics and music are by Lolly Vegas. In addition to vocals, Vegas performed the guitar and electric sitar on the song. The lyrics narrate a man being affirming towards his girlfriend, starting with the question "What's the matter with your head?" before encouragements such as "Nothin's a matter with your head, baby".

The single cut is significantly shorter, with the album version featuring an introductory slow part, plus a longer repeated coda. Most radio stations rarely play the latter. The song features a prominent part for electric sitar. A shorter DJ re-service edit of the single version is mainly distinguished by a lead vocal.

Critical reception

Cash Box was an early noticer of the song, listing the single in its "Choice Programming" section for "singles...deserving of special programmer consideration" on September 15, 1973. In a review of the Wovoka album on November 24, 1973, Billboard named "Come and Get Your Love" as an example of "moments of highly commercial material...which warrant FM airplay." Arty Goodman of Cash Box recommended "Come and Get Your Love" in his column on March 30, 1974, calling it "one of the best pop records of the year". Following its chart success, Broadcasting magazine regarded this song as Redbone's "most commercially oriented and un-Indian effort."

Commercial performance

Debuting on January 12 and charting for 23 weeks, the single peaked at number five on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart on April 13, 1974. The single was certified gold by the RIAA on April 22, 1974. The song is Redbone's highest charting single and one of two Top 40 hits by the band. (An earlier recording, "The Witch Queen of New Orleans," peaked at number 21 in 1972.)

In year-end charts, "Come and Get Your Love" ranked no. 4 on the Billboard Top Pop Singles of 1974 and no. 33 on Broadcasting magazine's top 100 radio singles.

In France, the single peaked at number 177 on the singles sales chart (physical sales + downloads) in 2017. The following year, Redbone's version featured in a Christmas 2018 media advertising campaign from Bouygues, the French telecommunications company, and the song soon rose to the top of the pop charts. It entered the downloads chart's Top 10, and reached number one on the singles sales chart at the end of the year. It also peaked at number 20 on the singles chart (downloads plus streaming) during the last week of the year.

Critical reception

Larry Flick from Billboard magazine commented, "The act has a field day with a nearly forgotten '70s pop nugget made famous by Redbone—we are dying to meet the nostalgic mind that came up with such a genius cover choice. Mixes are forthcoming. We are waiting with tambourine in hand." James Richliano from The Boston Globe felt it is "infectiously urbanized here for the '90s". Dave Sholin from the Gavin Report wrote, "Based on immediate programmer reaction, it seemed destined that this cover of Redbone's 1974 hit would be the obvious follow-up to the trio's hits 'Another Night' and 'Runaway'. Polishing it up '90s-style gives the group a clear shot at plenty of radio and club play for the summer ahead."

In his weekly UK chart commentary, James Masterton viewed it as "typical Euro dance, an uptempo beat, a high powered rap and a catchy female vocal, this time one which is too similar to Cyndi Lauper's '(Hey Now) Girls Just Wanna Have Fun' to be accidental but that is not to detract from the success of the track." Music Week gave it a score of four out of five, naming it "a cute and catchy track which is guaranteed to give Ojay, Vanessa and Patsy a fourth worldwide hit." Music Week editor Alan Jones noted that the "jaunty remake incorporates techno-edged synths, house rhythms, ragga rapping and – somewhere in the mix – enough elements of the original, highly infectious song to be sure of their fourth hit in a row."

Music video

The music video for "Come and Get Your Love" was directed by American music video director Wayne Isham and produced by Joe Flews for Industrial Artists. It was filmed in Los Angeles, the US, and depicts the band at a rooftop of a tall building, performing in front of a sign of large letters spelling out the word "McCOY HOTEL". The video was a Box Top on British music television channel The Box in the beginning of September 1995. One month later, MTV Europe put the video on break out rotation. At the 1995 Billboard Music Video Awards, "Come and Get Your Love" was nominated for Best New Artist Clip in the category for Dance.