🎸 My Personal miniBest7: Bryan Ferry — No. 7 “Let’s Stick Together”

Bryan Ferry’s Musical Journey: Explore His History Here!

My Personal miniBest7: No. 7 — “Let’s Stick Together”

An Urgent Plea Hidden Inside an Upbeat Rock ’n’ Roll Song

In 1976, Bryan Ferry released the solo single “Let’s Stick Together.” In September of the same year, his third solo album, also titled Let’s Stick Together, was released.

The album brought together previously released singles, B-sides, and tracks that had appeared on earlier LPs, combining cover versions with newly recorded interpretations of songs Ferry had written during his Roxy Music years. The title track reached No. 4 on the UK Singles Chart and remained on the chart for ten weeks.

It sounds like exuberant rock ’n’ roll, yet the man at the center of the lyrics is hardly in a happy situation. He is desperately trying to keep his partner from walking away.

Ferry does not turn that desperate plea into a sorrowful ballad. Instead, he sets it against music that makes your body want to move. The contrast between the bright sound and the troubled relationship beneath it keeps the song from becoming a straightforward love song.

My Interpretation of the Lyrics

Where did the two people who once promised each other forever go?
Somewhere along the way, love became something we took for granted,
and we even forgot the warmth of simply being close.
It will be too late once everything is gone.
We still have the happiness we built together, and a child whose future matters.
Please remember how we felt when we first met.
After all, I still want to walk the rest of this life with you.

First, listen to the official video on YouTube.

Credits
Bryan Ferry — “Let’s Stick Together”
Released: 1976
Written by: Wilbert Harrison
Vocals: Bryan Ferry
Video: Official Music Video
Source: Bryan Ferry Official YouTube Channel
In Two Lines
Released in 1976 and reaching No. 4 in the UK, “Let’s Stick Together” became one of Bryan Ferry’s signature solo hits. Its lively R&B-driven arrangement meets the unmistakable sensuality of Ferry’s voice.
The video also features Jerry Hall, who was Ferry’s partner at the time, capturing his distinctive sense of style across music, fashion, and visual presentation.

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The 1962 Original — A Song Born from American R&B

Wilbert Harrison’s “Let’s Stick Together”

This was not originally a Bryan Ferry song. It was first released in 1962 by American R&B singer Wilbert Harrison.

Harrison is best known for taking “Kansas City” to No. 1 in the United States in 1959. His singing was rooted in blues and R&B, with a direct, powerful style that needed little ornamentation.

His 1962 recording of “Let’s Stick Together” is similarly built around a simple rhythm and repeated phrases. Rather than relying on an elaborate structure, the song moves forward on the sheer momentum of the performance.

How the Original Became “Let’s Work Together”

The song later took on another form. In 1969, Harrison rewrote the lyrics and recorded it again under the title “Let’s Work Together.”

The focus shifted from trying to hold a marriage together to a broader call for people to cooperate with one another. The following year, American blues-rock band Canned Heat covered “Let’s Work Together,” helping bring the song to a much wider audience.

When Bryan Ferry returned to the song in 1976, he chose the 1962 version, “Let’s Stick Together,” centered on the promises and strains of marriage.

Turning a Cover Song into His Own Music

Since his first solo album, These Foolish Things, in 1973, Ferry had actively explored songs written and recorded by other artists.

But he was never the kind of singer who simply reproduced an original recording. He kept the song’s basic framework while reshaping the arrangement and vocal approach until it sounded entirely at home in his own musical world.

On “Let’s Stick Together,” the earthy strength of American R&B is transformed by the glamour and theatricality of 1970s British rock.

The album Let’s Stick Together includes not only cover songs but also newly recorded versions of Ferry’s own material from the Roxy Music years. Revisiting existing songs from a different angle and drawing them into his present musical identity was an important part of his solo work during this period.

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Saxophones Push, Guitars Drive — The Sound of 1976

The Musicianship Behind the Rock ’n’ Roll Energy

The first thing that hits me is the sheer momentum of the performance. The drums lay down a crisp beat, the bass pushes from underneath, and guitars and horns join in as the song surges forward almost immediately.

The album features a varied group of musicians, including Chris Spedding, Phil Manzanera, Paul Thompson, and John Wetton. Players closely associated with Roxy Music mix with musicians from outside the band, giving Ferry’s solo work a character of its own.

I first became deeply aware of Roxy Music through Avalon in 1982. Listening to this 1976 recording, I am struck by how different the texture is, even though Ferry remains at the center of both.

Where Avalon is defined by smooth rhythms and meticulously crafted sound, the instruments here seem to compete for space, each pushing forward. Yet Ferry’s voice is never overwhelmed. That alone says something about how distinctive he is as a vocalist.

The Rush of the Saxophones

The saxophones are particularly striking. The musicians credited on the album include Mel Collins on soprano saxophone and Chris Mercer on tenor saxophone.

The sharp sound of the horns brings an unmistakable R&B flavor to the rock ’n’ roll and darts around Ferry’s vocal. They add a rough-edged excitement and a sense of exhilaration that guitars alone could never create.

A Sound That Evokes an Old Dance Hall

To me, those horns evoke the atmosphere of an old dance hall or an R&B club. There is something nostalgic in the sound, but it never feels trapped in the past.

The rhythmic feel inherited from the 1950s and ’60s sits naturally beside the power of 1970s rock. Ferry may have chosen an older song, but he was never interested in simply recreating it.

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“Let’s Stick Together” — Revisiting the Marriage Vow

Trying to Save a Relationship That Is Falling Apart

“Let’s Stick Together” carries the sense of staying together and refusing to walk away from each other.

At first, it might sound like a song about two lovers promising each other a future. But the lyrics actually center on a couple who are already married.

The narrator asks his partner to remember the marriage vows they once made. He wants to preserve the home they have built together and urges her to think again before leaving.

His plea also brings their child into the picture. In other words, this is not a song about the beginning of love. It is about what happens when a marriage is already close to breaking apart.

A Reality That Love Alone Cannot Resolve

What interests me is that the narrator does not simply say, “I love you.” He invokes their marriage vows and their child as he tries to persuade his partner to stay.

At the beginning of a romance, love may need no reason. But after two people have shared a life for years, problems arise that feelings alone cannot always resolve.

In a marriage, there are things two people can understand without speaking. But misunderstandings can also grow precisely because certain things are left unsaid. The more someone becomes part of everyday life, the easier it may become to forget to express gratitude or tenderness.

There is a real desperation in the way the narrator reaches all the way back to their vows in an attempt to save the relationship. Reason and emotion are tangled together, and that is what makes the song feel so human.

He Never Sings the Sadness Sadly

Given what the lyrics are saying, Ferry’s vocal approach is remarkably distinctive. Rather than openly begging or exposing every emotion, he maintains a slightly affected, stylish manner. There is a sensual sheen to his voice and, despite the desperation of the situation, even a hint of composure.

To me, it sounds like the behavior of a man who does not want to reveal his weakness. He does not want her to leave, but neither does he want her to see him lose control. Ferry’s voice captures that contradiction beautifully.

A man trying to win back his love while remaining stylish to the very end. That is where the song becomes both faintly comic and genuinely sad.

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Jerry Hall — A Glimpse of the 1970s on Film

His Partner at the Time Appears in the Official Video

The official music video featured here includes model Jerry Hall, who was in a relationship with Bryan Ferry at the time.

Hall was a prominent figure in the fashion world of the 1970s and later became widely known as Mick Jagger’s partner. In the video, Ferry performs in a suit while Hall’s presence adds another layer of glamour to the music.

An Aesthetic That Connects Music and Fashion

Bryan Ferry studied Fine Art at Newcastle University and graduated in 1968. The interest in visual expression that he developed before becoming a professional musician would later be reflected strongly in Roxy Music’s album covers, clothing, photography, and overall presentation.

For Ferry, the appearance of the performer was never separate from the music. Clothing, posture, album artwork, photography, and film all became part of the world he created.

I sense something in this approach that connects Ferry with David Bowie, although the way they presented themselves was very different. Bowie repeatedly created fictional personas and transformed himself dramatically, while Ferry seemed to build on his own identity, continually refining an image of sophisticated masculinity.

Just the Right Amount of Swagger

There has always been something knowingly affected about Ferry’s manner. Yet part of his appeal is that he manages to turn even that self-conscious stylishness into a convincing form of expression.

Anyone can put on a similar suit and move in a similar way, but that does not make them Bryan Ferry. The voice, the expression, the movement, and the clothes all have to come together before that unmistakable presence appears.

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Final Thoughts — An Elegant Man Singing an Awkward Plea for Love

“Let’s Stick Together” shows me a very different side of Bryan Ferry from the one I later discovered through Avalon.

Here the rock ’n’ roll is rougher, more physical, and more immediate. Even so, his slightly idiosyncratic phrasing, distinctive vocal inflections, and refusal to expose every emotion directly already contain the qualities that would remain unmistakably Ferry in later years.

For this miniBest7, I have not separated Roxy Music from Ferry’s solo work. I simply chose the seven songs I love most, and “Let’s Stick Together” takes the opening position at No. 7.

The instinct to take a 1962 R&B song and turn it into something unmistakably his own in 1976. The story of a marriage in trouble hidden beneath an exuberant arrangement. And Bryan Ferry somehow singing it all as stylish rock ’n’ roll.

“Let’s Stick Together” is a song in which Bryan Ferry’s music and visual aesthetic come together effortlessly.