As Donald Fagen laments about his lost youth in Hey Nineteen  he claims his potential lover is so young that he croons
“Hey Nineteen that’s ‘retha Franklin, She don’t remember Queen of Soul”
An example of another name check. 

Aretha is one of those artists that are name checked and events dated such was her influence. Her history is well recorded in obituaries. But what comes across is a black woman way ahead of her time. Undaunted by prejudice or social boundaries her voice carried her above what was female and human.

Her voice allowed her to fly higher and more independently than other black or white women of the time with the yoke of patriarchy keeping them low. Perhaps this is also romantacising her.

She had a hard childhod. She had two children before she was 15 years old. She left her kids in Detroit with family and moved to New York to further her singing career. She suffered in silent guilt as a mother wanting to be with her children but determined to sing. Nothing was going to stop her. Like many children who are abandoned young she had something to prove. To be loved. 
RESPECT

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