I Gotcha (Joe Tex song)
| "I Gotcha" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Joe Tex | ||||
| from the album I Gotcha | ||||
| A-side | "A Mother's Prayer" | |||
| Released | December 1971 | |||
| Recorded | 1971 | |||
| Studio | American (Memphis, Tennessee) | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 2:18 | |||
| Label | Dial Records | |||
| Songwriter | Joe Tex | |||
| Producer | Buddy Killen | |||
| Joe Tex singles chronology | ||||
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"I Gotcha" is a song by Joe Tex. Originally intended for King Floyd, instead Tex recorded it himself in the late 1960s, but did not release it at that time. He decided to re-record it in late 1971 and released it as the B-side of "A Mother's Prayer", the first single from his 1972 album I Gotcha. Mostly spoken in the form of an early rap song, with few singing passages, "I Gotcha" has the singer chastising a woman for playing with his affections: "You never shouldn't have promised if you weren't gonna do it".
Radio DJs ended up playing this B-side song more than the A-side. This would result in Tex having his first major hit in five years as "I Gotcha" eventually peaked at number one in the US, on the R&B chart and number two on the Pop chart for two weeks, behind "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" by Roberta Flack and would sell around three million copies. Billboard ranked it as the No. 6 song of 1972. In Canada, the song reached number 22. Tex would later re-record "I Gotcha" in a ballad-style for his 1978 album Rub Down.