Aretha Franklin's cover of Respect ranked best song of all time

"

" These first few lines set the tone for Respect, the song that Otis Redding created in 1965 and, that in a sublime cover, Aretha Franklin made immortal two years later in 1967. Today, a few weeks after the release of the eponymous film by Liesl Tommy, a biopic devoted to the queen of soul,

magazine

has just classified this immense

"

".

Read also Aretha Franklin, a music legend

This absolute standard has a history.

At first, Otis Redding wrote the lyrics from his point of view, that is, that of a man, who wants his wife to respect him when he comes home.

Taken up by Aretha Franklin, the message suddenly turns around.

It is now up to the husband, called in English "

", to show respect to his wife or his partner.

Read also With

, Aretha Franklin gives a hymn to the cause of women

This reversal of values, recorded - this is not a detail on Valentine's Day 1967 - instantly becomes a symbol of women's liberation.

The biographer David Ritz will write in 2014 in

(not yet translated into French): “

"

Aretha Franklin eclipses Bob Dylan

It had been seventeen years since

updated its ranking of the best songs of all time. In 2004, this playlist of excellence, established after the vote of some 250 music professionals (critics, musicians, arrangers, etc.), elected

Bob Dylan's

.

Three years after the death of the queen of soul, it is a beautiful posthumous consecration that she receives here.

The editorialists of the

do not seem to have been surprised by this deserved dubbing, but it must be admitted, well in the air of the time of MeToo as they wrote in their magazine: “Respect

"

And in tribute to Aretha Franklin and Otis Redding, their interpretation of

.

Aretha Franklin sings

Otis Redding sings