The Queen of Soul is here to save your morning

I know what you’re thinking right now. “Where did the weekend go? Why am I so tired? How the heck am I going to survive the avalanche of work coming at me over the next five days?” You see, I’m just like The Mentalist, except I don’t solve crimes, I don’t sleep under a smiley face made of blood, and I don’t have magically wavy golden locks like Simon Baker.

What I do have, however, is an embedded YouTube clip of Aretha Franklin’s “Rock Steady.” That ugly bass line, the hypnotic cowbell, and the instructive words of the Queen of Soul herself — “Step and move your hips with a feelin’ from side to side. Sit yourself down in your car and take a ride.” — are guaranteed to take you from the brink of collapse to a certified endorphin high. No lie: This morning, while listening to “Rock Steady” on the subway , it took every fiber of my being to stop myself from scaring my fellow commuters with a soulful backing vocal (“What it is, what it is, what it is…”).So quit trying to resist and press play. It’ll be lunchtime before you know it.