Ann Peebles / Straight from the Heart / 1972
I Take What I Want
defiant, hungry, self-assured
A declaration of sexual and emotional appetite delivered without apology, this song is Ann Peebles claiming the traditionally male prerogative of pursuit. The narrator spots someone, decides she wants him, and announces her intention to take him with blunt, repetitive insistence rather than seduction or persuasion.
female desire and agency self-possession pursuit and conquest refusal of romantic convention assertive sexuality
Who's speaking
A first-person female narrator addresses a man she has been watching, speaking directly to him and about herself in the third person as a type ('bad old gal'). She is not asking permission -- the voice is confident to the point of bravado, and its reliability is beside the point since the song is a performance of will rather than a report of events.
What happens
The song opens with a flat statement of character and appetite before moving into a small scene: the narrator has been observing a man silently and now decides to act. She instructs him to come get her, insists she is available and ready, then closes by restating her resolve to pursue and keep him, refusing the possibility of losing interest or being refused.
How it's built
The song is built less on verse-chorus contrast than on incremental variation of a single refrain, which returns after almost every stanza with slight rephrasing. There's a loose narrative arc -- watching, then summoning, then claiming -- but the repetition of the central declaration matters more than plot development; the bridge-like final section intensifies the claim into a vow of permanence rather than introducing new content.
Section by section
Opening declaration
“I'm a bad old gal”
Before any scene is set, the narrator defines herself in general terms: she takes what she wants and doesn't offer love or gentle treatment in return. This upfront self-characterization functions as a thesis statement for the whole song.
First verse
The song narrows to a specific situation -- a man she has been silently observing -- and marks a shift from passive watching to active pursuit. The transition from silence to declared want is the song's real turning point, compressed into just a couple of lines.
Second verse
“here I am I'm just a little bad girl”
The imagery becomes almost transactional, with rapid commands to come and collect her. Calling herself a 'little bad girl' softens the earlier harder self-description, creating a playful tension between toughness and coyness that keeps the persona from feeling purely aggressive.
Closing section
The final stanza escalates from wanting to claiming, adding language of permanence and refusal to relent. This is where desire calcifies into something closer to possession, closing the song on an unambiguous note of control rather than romance.
Craft
- anaphora
- The recurring assertion of taking what she wants opens and re-anchors nearly every section, functioning like a mantra that reinforces the narrator's will over the song's shifting scenes.
- self-labeling
- Calling herself a 'bad old gal' repurposes a term of moral judgment as a badge of pride, flipping expected shame into confidence.
- imperative mood
- Commands directed at the addressee ('come get me,' 'hurry') shift the power dynamic so the man is the one being summoned and instructed, inverting typical courtship roles.
- grammatical looseness
- The lyric's non-standard, sometimes ungrammatical phrasing gives it a spoken, unpolished urgency that matches the directness of the sentiment rather than reading as a flaw.
Reading it
The most persuasive reading treats this as a straightforward inversion of soul and blues convention, where a woman adopts the swaggering, unrepentant posture usually reserved for male narrators in songs about romantic conquest -- notable given the era and given that Peebles herself co-wrote much of her catalog exploring female frustration and desire. A secondary reading is possible: the repeated, almost chant-like insistence and the simplicity of the lyric could suggest performance of a persona or type ('bad girl') more than a literal autobiographical stance, making the song as much about trying on a role as about a specific man being pursued.
Context
Released in 1972 on Straight from the Heart, the album predates Peebles' commercial breakthrough with 'I Can't Stand the Rain' a couple of years later. Hi Records in this period was built around the Memphis soul sound shaped by Willie Mitchell's production, and Peebles' catalog from this stretch often features women speaking with blunt confidence about desire and dissatisfaction, though I don't have reliable specifics on the writing or recording circumstances of this particular track.
Listen for
- how the repeated refrain shifts in emphasis or delivery each time it returns
- the contrast between the harder self-description early on and the softer 'little bad girl' phrasing later
- the shift from observation to command in the verses
- the closing section's escalation from desire language into vows of permanence
- the overall rhythmic insistence that mirrors the lyric's repetitive structure
About Ann Peebles
Ann Lee Peebles is a retired American singer and songwriter who gained popularity for her Memphis soul albums of the 1970s while signed to Hi Records. Her most successful singles include "I Can't Stand the Rain," which she wrote with her husband Don Bryant and radio broadcaster Bernie Miller, and "I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down." In 2014, she was inducted into the Memphis Music Hall of Fame.
b. 1947 / United States
Full biography and catalogue