“Chain of Fools” is about discovering your partner has been unfaithful.

One of five Top 10 hits Aretha scored in 1967, it rose to #2.

The following year, this song wound up on Aretha’s album ‘Lady Soul’—at #2, it’s her biggest LP, tied with the classic ‘I Never Loved a Man the Way I Love You.’

This song was penned by songwriter Don Covay when he was a kid—later, he intended it for Otis Redding, but producer Jerry Wexler passed the track to Aretha.

In 1968, Aretha disclosed her most treasured tracks to Record Mirror: “Two of my favourite songs incidentally are ‘Rock-a-Bye,’ which was on Columbia, and ‘Chain of Fools.’”

This song won Best Female R&B Vocal Performance at the Grammys in 1969.

Aretha told the Independent about interacting with Barack Obama before he was President: “You know what he said to me? ‘You look good.’ I was already beginning to lose weight. It was an affirmation of all my efforts. And then he sang ‘Chain of Fools,’ and I thought, ‘He’s really hip. Real down, and real up.’ And he’s got a walk like nobody else.”