Earworms: Have You Seen Her by the Chi-Lites

Why oh way did she have to leave AND go away?

In seventh grade, I took to staying in at recess to write goofy little stories about super-heroes or tales of my classmates at a drive-in movie theater. I hadn’t discovered sports yet, and being outside didn’t offer as much fun to me as sitting there imagining wild visions. At the same time, the African-American girls in my class were staying in and playing records, making up little choreographies full of dance moves that impressed the heck out of me. It was 1971, and I learned to love many of the songs they played before they would wind up on the Top 40 stations I listened to.

One such record was “Have You Seen Her” by the Chi-Lites. This 45 rpm was much longer than the others the girls played, and longer than the ones I owned myself. At 5:08 seconds, with a seductive fuzz guitar intro, then a lazy-toned spoken word bit over luscious “bum-bu-bum”’s before it eventually gets to the glorious verses containing the title hook and the even more glorious bridge in super-high falsetto, this record blew my 13-year-old mind.

The Chi-Lites had a long history by this time, having formed in Chicago as a group within the first year of my life, back in 1959. Not even Wikipedia records the original name of the clearly doo-wop influenced singing collective, though apparently it included seven high school students at the time. After some membership and name changes, the four men who became the classic line-up of the Chi-Lites were set by the time they signed to Brunswick Records in 1969. Songwriter and lead singer Eugene Record and Robert “Squirrel” Lester remained from the early days, Marshall Thompson had been around almost as long, and Creadel “Red” Jones joined in 1960.

I had no idea “Have You Seen Her” was co-written by Record and Barbara Acklin, who had been having soul hits for a few years at this point. In fact they had co-written her hit “Love Makes a Woman” in 1968. I have noway of knowing, but I hope it was Acklin’s idea to never even hint at the reason the missing lover left her man. The focus is squarely on a lonely man trying to get through the day without the woman who had meant so much to him.

“Why oh why,” Record’s falsetto cries, with the other Chi-Lites hugging him before they drop out for the rest of the phrase – “did she have to leave AND go away?” This much pain demands such a duplicated question. “I’ve been used” he continues, and the way he pronounces the word leans on the idea of being taken advantage of rather than accustomed to, “to having someone to lean on, and I’m lost, baby I’m lost.” It’s among the most devastating and effective displays of anguish in pop music, partly because Record is so under control with his delivery, partly because of the presence of his mates ready to lend some more “bum-bu-bum”’s to lead into the next verse, and partly by the contrast to the spoken portion at the beginning.

At the age of 12 and 13, neither I nor presumably the girls in my classroom had enough experience to know how much such a total separation could hurt. I’m sure we were responding to other parts of the record – for them, it was part of their home life, the cultural bonds that popular music created in African-American communities. For me, it was something out of the ordinary. I was a singer in choir at the time, and I’m sure the harmonies of the Chi-Lites resonated with me. But I didn’t know gospel music, I barely knew soul music, and the rawness of Record’s expression hit me hard against the luscious backing vocals and swaying slow dance groove. And then there was that fuzz guitar lick at the beginning with the Chi-Lites harmonizing in wide-open chords behind it. It was all new to me, and it became a huge part of my development as a music fan.

It took me another thirteen years to pick up the album which included this song, (For God’s Sake) Give More Power to the People. For my money, this record is one of the all-time classics of album soul, right up there with near contemporaries like What’s Going On Marvin Gaye or Back Stabbers by the O’Jays. The title track opens with a warning siren and is a missing link between Sly & the Family Stone and Funkadelic. And then there’s “We Are Neighbors,” a powerhouse sing-along cut. Within this context, “Have You Seen Her” is a change of pace, a personal lament in the middle of songs about the world around us.

But, then again, another stroke of genius in “Have You Seen Her” is that spoken word bit I mentioned, which does include the world outside the singer. Plenty of break-up songs about loneliness listed all the reasons the singer was now miserable. I can’t think of any others off the top of my head that show us the sadness in contrast to watching children play, and acknowledging that they have a future while tomorrow is “just another day” to the man talking. He speaks in the tradition of heavy rhythmic emphasis heard in many r&b songs of the past, but he also sounds connected to the moments he’s describing. “We laugh, tell a few jokes, but it doesn’t ease my pain.” “I keep saying she’ll be back, but today again I’ve lied.” That’s a signal for the Chi-Lites to respond with a sharp “Oh!” before the first verse starts in.

“Oh I see her face everywhere I go / On the street and even at the picture show.” This is sung in a lower falsetto than the bridge, with the rest of the singers lending full-spirited support. “Have you seen her? Tell me have you seen her?” Of course, I would eventually be aware of the truth in which you are sure you see familiar faces after they have left your life. But it was the sound of the melody which initially grabbed me, and made this truth feel even more real when I eventually experienced it for myself. “Oh, I hear her voice as the cold winds blow / In the sweet music on my radio.” What a powerful image, and one that rang true every time I heard this beautiful record on my radio.

The Chi-Lites continued on for decades, making many albums to varying degrees of success. Eugene Record left the group in 1973 for an attempt at a solo career that never took off, then returned to spend most of the 80s with the Chi-Lites again. Other personnel changes were frequent. I can’t think of any of their later records that hit with the emotional force of the songs from 1971 or 1972 (“Oh Girl” probably deserves its own entry some day).

This piece goes out to Carmen, Patrice, Cynthia, Debbie, and Dottie, wherever you are.