"We're A Winner" (The Impressions)

Composer Curtis Mayfield's "We're A Winner" (released 1967, charted 1968) is one of the most positive songs in all of soul music.  That's why it's almost unfathomable today that many radio stations refused to play it; its message of empowerment was perceived as "too militant" by some in the wake of rioting in cities like Detroit and Newark.  (If you're familiar with his 1971 album Curtis/Live!, you'll recall that Mayfield addresses this in the middle of a live rendition of the song.)
But all it takes is listening to the track just once—I mean really listening, and it's evident that Mayfield was encouraging black Americans to keep on pushing against stereotypes and barriers, not against riot police.  In fact, it's implicit in the celebratory atmosphere of the track, which was recorded with a live audience at RCA Studios in Chicago, that it was time for victory, not violence.
In a 2013 article for Wax Poetics, journalist Michael Gonzales recounts a 1996 interview with Mayfield, in which he acknowledges the song was a turning point for him as a composer.
Said Mayfield, "That song came to me in a dream.  I ran down in the basement and put enough down that I would remember; that was one of the few times I knew I had a smash.  Maybe not a charted smash that would earn more money, but the lyrical content of equality and freedom needed for somebody to 'Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud.'  We needed to come from crying the blues to standing tall."
In addition to featuring some of Mayfield's best lyrics and one of his best melodies, the song has a rhythm track that's unstoppable.  Session drummer Billy Griffin sounds like he's coming right out of the speakers at you, especially on that instrumental break after the second chorus.  It's impossible not to move, clap, tap a toe, etc. to that groove.