Song · Sly and the Family Stone
“If You Want Me To Stay” by Sly and the Family Stone
From the album Fresh (1973)
“If You Want Me To Stay” by Sly and the Family Stone appears on 3 radio countdowns from 3 stations between 2001 and 2022. It was first released in 1973 on the album Fresh. Its best result is #820 on the 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of the '70s. In the combined RockLists rankings it is #4,373 indie & aaa song of all time.
"If You Want Me to Stay" was the 1973 hit that came off Fresh, and it's Sly Stone more or less alone in the room: by then he was building most of his music by himself, and he cut this one with little input from the rest of the Family Stone. He wrote it alone, and it grew out of an apology he'd written to his future wife, Kathleen Silva, after a fight.
What he's telling his lover is simple and a little defiant: let me be myself, or I'll have to go. He'd actually finished a first version, along with most of Fresh, before he scrapped the masters and recut the album; the alternate takes surfaced on the underground market, and five tracks from the alternate mix finally showed up on Epic's 2007 reissue. Record World found it "as bizarre as his other outings and just as commercial."
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 926 | WFPK | WFPK 2001 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2000 |
| 2020 | 1873 | WXPN | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2020 |
| 2022 | 820 | 90.9 The Bridge | 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of the '70s | 908 |
Also listed as: If You Want Me to Stay.
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