General Norman Johnson (23 May 1943, Norfolk, VA – 13 Oct 2010, Atlanta, GA), had a hit as the lead singer of The Showmen, in the early '60s, with the New Orleans rock'n'roll anthem It Will Stand.
When Holland-Dozier-Holland left Motown, in 1967, to establish their own Invictus/Hot Wax group of labels, they teamed-up Johnson with Eddie Custis, Danny Woods &, Canadian born, Harrison Kennedy - as the new company's flagship act - under the appropriate name 'Chairmen of the Board'. Dozier explained, according to Songfacts: "We called them that because of their extraordinary talents. They each played several instruments, sang and wrote songs as well." Custis left the group after their second album.
Though they all had a turn at lead vocals, it was General Johnson's quirky hiccup-laden style and his songwriting which became increasingly showcased, wit hthe group selling a million plus copies of "Give Me Just A Little More Time". Chairmen of the Board also scored with "You've Got Me Dangling On A String", "Pay To the Piper", "Everything's Tuesday", "Working On A Building Of Love", "Elmo James", "Finders Keepers", and the original version of "Patches", a memorable ballad later covered with great success by Clarence Carter.
Kennedy, Woods and Johnson all went on to cut solo albums of varying quality, whilst Johnson wrote and produced (with Greg Perry) for other Invictus/Hot Wax acts, notably Honey Cone. Harrison having left, Johnson and Woods toured the UK in 1976 with six musicians as "Chairmen of the Board", but were not as successful as before. The act was broken up immediately afterwards, Johnson having signed for Arista Records as a solo artist.
In 1978, Johnson reformed the Chairmen of the Board. In 1980, the new Chairmen founded Surfside Records, for which the group records for to this day.
The Chairmen of the Board (General Johnson, Danny Woods and Ken Knox) were inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame in 1999.
General Johnson continued to perform with Woods and Knox as the "Chairmen of the Board" until his death from lung cancer in 2010.
In 2012, Chairmen of the Board released a single, "You", which was written and produced by Knox.
In 2013, former member Harrison Kennedy was nominated for a Blues Music Award in the "Acoustic Artist" category.
Danny Woods died in January 2018.
Give Me Just A Little More Time
Chairmen Of The Board Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
And our love will surely grow
Give me just a little more time
And our love will surely grow
Life's too short to make a mistake
Let's think of each other and hesitate
Young and impatient we may be
There's no need to act foolishly
If we part our hearts won't forget it
Years from now we'll surely regret it
Give me just a little more time
And our love will surely grow
Give me just a little more time
And our love will surely grow
You're young and you're in a hurry
You're eager for love but don't you worry
We both want the sweetness in life
But these things don't come overnight
Don't give up 'cause love's been slow
Girl, we're gonna succeed with another blow
Give me just a little more time
And our love will surely grow
Baby please baby
Baby please baby
Love is that mountain we must climb
Let's climb it together your hand in mine
We haven't known each other too long
But the feeling I have is oh so strong
I know we can make it, there's no doubt
We owe it to ourselves to find it out, just
Give me just a little more time
And our love will surely grow
Give me just a little more time
And our love will surely grow
Give me just a little more time
And our love will surely grow
Baby, please baby
Baby, please baby
The lyrics of "Give Me Just a Little More Time" by Chairmen of the Board speak to the hesitancy and impatience that can come with young love. The singer asks for just a little more time to let their love grow, and warns against acting foolishly, as a hasty decision to part could lead to regret in the future. The song emphasizes the importance of taking things slow and climbing the mountain of love together, hand in hand. The repetition of the chorus reinforces this plea for patience and time to build a stronger relationship.
Line by Line Meaning
Give me just a little more time
Please give me some more time to work on our relationship and I am sure our love will improve.
And our love will surely grow
If we give our relationship a little bit more time, we will have a stronger, more loving connection.
Life's too short to make a mistake
We should not rush into any premature decisions in our relationship because we do not have a lot of time in life to fix our mistakes.
Let's think of each other and hesitate
We should carefully consider each other's feelings and actions before making any rash decisions.
Young and impatient we may be
We are young and we may not have the patience to wait for our love to grow stronger.
There's no need to act foolishly
It is not necessary to make any thoughtless moves just because of our young age and impatience.
If we part our hearts won't forget it
If we break up, we will not forget the love we shared and we will regret it later in life.
Years from now we'll surely regret it
As time goes on, we will regret breaking up more and more.
You're young and you're in a hurry
You are in a rush to find love because you are young and impulsive.
You're eager for love but don't you worry
Do not worry about finding true love because it will come in time.
We both want the sweetness in life
We both want to experience the good things in life, including love.
But these things don't come overnight
However, we cannot expect love to happen immediately; we have to be patient and work on it.
Don't give up 'cause love's been slow
We should not give up on our relationship just because it is taking a while for our love to grow stronger.
Girl, we're gonna succeed with another blow
We will succeed in making our love stronger if we keep working on our relationship together.
Love is that mountain we must climb
Love is like a mountain that we need to climb to get to our goal of a strong, loving relationship.
Let's climb it together your hand in mine
We should work on climbing this mountain of love together by supporting each other and holding hands.
We haven't known each other too long
We have not been together for a very long time, but we should try to build our love together over time.
But the feeling I have is oh so strong
Despite not being together long, I have a strong feeling that our love will grow stronger if we keep working on it.
I know we can make it, there's no doubt
I believe that we can make our love stronger if we keep working on it and supporting each other.
We owe it to ourselves to find it out, just
We should take the time to work on our love because we owe it to ourselves to find out if it will blossom into a strong, loving relationship.
Baby please baby
Please, my love, give our relationship a little more time to grow.
Baby please baby
Please, my love, give our relationship a little more time to grow.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: EDYTHE WAYNE, RONALD DUNBAR
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind