Aretha Franklin, "Oh Me Oh My (I'm a Fool for You Baby)"

Had April Fool's Day fallen on a Friday this year, I'd certainly have put together a Friday Funtime set of 10 "fool" songs to match. Most of them would have had a negative valence to the term: Chris Rea's chastising "Fool (If You Think It's Over)," the Rolling Stones gone white-horsey and dark-nighted on "Fool to Cry," Rufus Wainwright's sublimely bitter "April Fools," and the like.

But I'd rather focus today on the more positive interpretation of the fool: the one appreciated by the tarot for his ability to see things as they are and find the joy in what is, who uses his outsider status to provide a window into truth and understanding. This fool's playfulness offers those around him a chance to tap back into that. It is this fool that Aretha Franklin becomes in "Oh Me Oh My (I'm a Fool for You Baby)."

The indominable Lulu took first crack at the tune, taking it to #22 in 1970. (Isn't that just the loveliest video?) But she rendered it sassy and brassy, whereas it perhaps needed a more adult reading, and so along came Aretha a year later. (Alas, it was relegated to the B-side of "Rock Steady," so it only made #73 on the Hot 100.) This is my very favorite of all Aretha's performances, the way she nails every whoop and declamation, backing singers Sweet Inspiration a solid bedrock behind her, the band maintaining a quiet and steady pulse. Almost easy to overlook the eccentricities of the lyric - and I give songwriter Jim Doris a hell of a lot of credit for imaginativeness, from the second verse's fingers-do-the-walking ballet to the last one's genie in a puff of smoke.

It's exactly the sort of odd and oddly romantic imagery a good fool provides.