woohoo!! my very first post!! this thread probly isn’t what you’re thinking about. in that song, “r-e-s-p-e-c-t, find out what it means to me, r-e-s-p-e-c-t, take out tcp” well, when you take out “tcp” it spells “rese”…what is that???
Almost two years ago we wrangled over this for a bit in R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
The most frequent answer (although no consensus seems to have been achieved) is that Aretha sang
with “take care of business” being a euphemism for sex.
Yup, a newbie posts, and bam, like a flash of lightning an Old Doper™ steps in to prove it’s all already been done. Just look at that post count! He knows what he’s talking bout! ::d&r::
Welcome, xphoenix! Searching Cecil’s archives at http://www.straightdope.com brings us this Staff Report on What exactly is Aretha singing in “Respect”?. Long story short, what tomndebb said;)
Don’t listen to these heretics, xphoenix! They’re just jealous because they can’t hear the words correctly.
Redding wrote the song originally in 1965 while he was working for the Xerox PARC laboratories as a computer scientist. PARC was just then refining the IPX protocol in support of early ARPANet design. Ms. Franklin also worked there as an assistant to Dr. Redding at the time (Redding earned his PhD in Electronical Engineering at Georgia Tech, near his native Macon, before “heading for the 'Frisco Bay”). Anyway, in those heady days, scientists across the country worked on various communications and computing projects which would one day become known simply as “the Net”. TCP/IP and IPX/SPX were competing protocols. So when Redding sang “Take out TCP” he was urging his followers to choose the IPX protocol over the equally nascent TCP/IP protocol. (If you’d bought Cisco stock you’d have been considered an unparalleled visionary; back then only carpenters used the term “router”)
Alas, Redding’s vision was not to be realised. His brief but brilliant career as Computer Scientist/Songwriter/Musician was cut short by a tragic plane crash on December 10, 1967, just outside Madison, Wisconsin. This was only six months after he had set the music world ablaze with his performance at the legendary Monterrey Pop Festival. Suspicions abounded in the shadowy world of defense contracting, but nothing was ever proved.
Fortunately Aretha continued his pioneering work in transport protocols, but in a coindence of stupendous magnitude, she also followed in his musical footsteps. She released her own version of “RESPECT” as a single in 1967, shortly after Redding’s death. She followed this up with “THINK”, a thinly veiled swipe at the folks over at IBM. “The House That Jack Built” aludes to the future and how data ports, “jacks”, will soon be a common feature in both homes and offices. Critics have debated for years whether “A Natural Woman” is an ode to Natural, a programming language for which Franklin helped design the compiler, or the class of natural programming languages such as LISP which were to soon follow.
Franklin has retired from the Computer Science world at this time, according to most accounts, perhaps disappointed that her contributions to the Internet were usurped by the self serving interests of our former Vice President. Some say that she is happy with her many Grammy awards and Gold Records; I would contend that these are scarce recompense for a lifetime devoted to discovery and innovation in the scientific community. But perhaps that is a subject best left for Great Debates.
Welcome to the Boards, indeed, xphoenix! 
Ah HA!
Caught you! When Natural was first introduced, it was a load-and-go only executable. There was no compiler before 1986 or so, long after Franklin’s song had been released.
(I’m sure the rest of your narration is extremely accurate, of course.)
Well, that certainly strenghtens the side which argues for the alternative interpretation of that particular song. Of course I could have meant she wrote the interpreter, and just substituted compiler for interpreter in the misguided belief that some of the readers here don’t know the difference. Mea culpa!
doh, hehe, and here i was trying to make a good impression 
i’ll check the archive next time before i post, thx for the welcome
I called attention to the older thread simply for the information. Doing a search for “respect” would have been an exercise in futility with hundreds of hits (as would a search on “tcp”–I simply looked up “aretha”).
I approve of people doing searches, but some searches are easier than others and I see no reason to abuse people on the point. (I might tweak someone who asked what were the names of the Beatles or something that is really easy, but blasting someone for asking a question is rather rude.)
xphoenix, may I recommend a visit to http://www.kissthisguy.com
Computer Scientist humor - you guys kill me 
(makes me yearn for the days when I was a CompSci major at UCSB…)
Anyway - Cecil’s column explains the basics of “Take care TCB” = take care of business, and yes, it is generally understood that TCB has a sexual connotation. But in addition, it is a bit of '50’s - ‘60’s African-American slang basically just meaning “you just hold up your end of the deal - do your share”. Elvis used TCB as a catch-phrase amongst the Memphis Mafia - I have seen “collectible” (ugh) reproductions of what is apparently a tour jacket for Elvis’ crew in the '60’s and it had TCB with a lightning bolt on the shoulder.
AFAIK, Aretha is the one who included TCB into Respect (I am at work and don’t have access to my copy of the Redding version), just like she included the sock-it-to-me’s…
This song always irritated me. Respect is EARNED, it cannot be demanded. If black women want respect, they need to get off welfare, stop having out-of-wedlock kids, educate themselves, and promote personal responsibility in their communities. They need to form solid 2-parent homes and teach their kids the values they need to stay off drugs, out of gangs and in school.
Simply put, I have no respect for someone who struts around screeching “gimme respect”.
yowza gingersnap - seems like you should take it to Great Debates. (welcome to the board, by the way). I think you are stirring up trouble needlessly. If you listen to the song, the voice of the woman (since we are discussing Aretha’s version, it is a woman singing) is saying she brings home money and wants respect for it, so she is not on welfare - out-of-wedlock kids, drugs, etc… simply aren’t mentioned and for the purposes of the song, not relevant.
Sounds like you have strong opinions regarding black women - that is your right (I happen to think your POV is way too near-sighted, but that is not relevant to this thread either) but no need to muddy this particular thread with them…
He also had it emblazoned on the tail of his jet.
Priscilla said it stood for “Taking care of business in a flash.”
I wonder how she felt about that?