Tags
Tamla T 54119 (B), August 1965
(2nd Pressing)
B-side of High Heel Sneakers
(Written by Ted Hull, Stevie Wonder and Clarence Paul)
Tamla Motown TMG 532 (B), September 1965
B-side of High Heel Sneakers
(Released in the UK under license through EMI/Tamla Motown)
Pulled from the vaults to replace Funny How Time Slips Away as the flip of Stevie Wonder’s new single, this weird little exercise – coming across as part studio jam, part half-finished result of some kind of songwriting workshop – is like a mutant cousin to Martha and the Vandellas’ banging mega-hit Dancing In The Street from the previous summer, if it was slowed down to half speed. And if it wasn’t very good.
Stevie himself cops a songwriting credit for this one (still enough of a rarity at this stage of his career to be a noteworthy occurrence; nobody at Motown realised it, but right now he was a pupa, soon to outgrow his chrysalis and take flight), and it’s tempting to ascribe everything that’s good about this – the dirty, squalling harmonica, the lolloping horn-and-piano groove that drags its feet across the bumpy ground as it limps along – to his influence. Equally, it’s tempting to assign the duff parts (the dopey lyrics, the lack of purpose, the bursts of strip-club horns), to his co-writers: Stevie shares that writing credit with his specialist tutor Ted Hull, as well as (of course) his producer and day-to-day “handler” Clarence Paul.
In truth, there’s not enough evidence to suggest either of those things is really true. This grows on me the more I hear it, but quite honestly I don’t know if you can extrapolate anything at all about the future of Stevie Wonder, songwriting genius, from Music Talk.
My biggest problem with this, really, is that too often it slips into sounding workmanlike, routine, even dull. Coming on the heels of two live tracks, this certainly seems to be missing the buzz and thrill of a concert audience, but I think it runs deeper than that. Fatally, it’s a song about the joy and life-changing power which a love of music can bring, but done without passion, the words never leaving the page.
(And they’re not great words to begin with, the spectre of this having been cobbled together as some sort of ghastly group creative writing exercise – or even, shudder, Stevie’s schoolteacher coming up to him one day saying he’d written a song about how lovely music is – and ending up with a series of banal platitudes that call to mind the Beach Boys’ equally point-missing Add Some Music To Your Day. We don’t need to be told how good music can be when we’re actually listening to your music, guys. And certainly not if you’ve got no insights to bring to the table; the observations here are cookie-cutter “Music is nice” stuff, and Stevie imbues them with so little life that this could easily have been rewritten as, I don’t know, Woodwork Talk or something. “You’ve got an adze, that’s a special kind of plane… Measure twice, cut once, that’s what they say”. But I digress.)
Just as with the abortive B-side it replaced, Music Talk isn’t awful. There are some good musical moments here, and ironically they’re the moments which come over like the result of someone having fun messing around in the studio: the moments which are least staged, least preoccupied with telling us how much they love music, end up being the ones that sound most like these guys actually really do love music. But on the whole, yet again when writing about a Stevie Wonder 45 from this weird between-the-wars period, this feels like something of a pointless exercise.
MOTOWN JUNKIES VERDICT
(I’ve had MY say, now it’s your turn. Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment, or click the thumbs at the bottom there. Dissent is encouraged!)
You’re reading Motown Junkies, an attempt to review every Motown A- and B-side ever released. Click on the “previous” and “next” buttons below to go back and forth through the catalogue, or visit the Master Index for a full list of reviews so far.
(Or maybe you’re only interested in Stevie Wonder? Click for more.)
 |
 |
| Stevie Wonder “Funny (How Time Slips Away)” |
Tony Martin “The Bigger Your Heart Is (The Harder You’ll Fall)” |
DISCOVERING MOTOWN |
|---|
Like the blog? Listen to our radio show! |
| Motown Junkies presents the finest Motown cuts, big hits and hard to find classics. Listen to all past episodes here. |
Motown Junkies 
I love the overall feel of this track, and I think that the melody is strong as well. Out of all the Stevie Wonder studio recordings reviewed so far, this is the first one I can say that I’ve really, really liked. 8/10.
LikeLike
Ha! Amazing.
I’d never in a million years wish for my reviews to discourage people from checking things out themselves and making their own minds up.
It makes me a bit jealous, to be honest, when people are obviously hearing something amazing in a record that I’m just not getting (Back In My Arms Again is another example of that), but hopefully if y’all disagree with me it’s at least useful for calibration purposes (e.g. “oh, Nixon hates this, but then he hated XYZ and I love that, so maybe I’ll love this”).
LikeLike
The point of this recording is that it is a showcase for the Funk Brothers. Until this record Motown’s studio musicians were largely invisible and unknown to the general public. Music Talk is about the Funk Brothers and their relationship as mentors to Stevie Wonder. It even gave the drummer some before James Brown, a rarity at the time. It was a musical revelation.
Music Talk is aptly named as it is a vehicle for the musical foundation of Motown Records. It provided a fascinating glimpse into the invitation only world of Hitsville.
LikeLike
Interesting theory! And a good point, though I think if anything, the binned Funny How Time Slips Away is even more of a band showcase than this one.
LikeLike
I’ve always liked this record, and I can see why it replaced “Funny How Times Slips Away” as the flip. I think it has more energy and celebration than your review implies. And, sure, it doesn’t begin to hold a candle to the a-sides and b-sides that will come in the next year (and well beyond) for Stevie. But it has its virtues: a tempo that’s relatively uncommon for songs of this period and an informality that may not have been easily achieved considering the recording schedules at Motown driven by producers and vocalists who had more clout in these months of 1965.
I hope that a reader who has never heard it seeks it out anyway, even after reading your review and noting the mark. I revisited the “Marks Out of 10” page to refresh my memory. Your definitions are certainly succinct and show the distinctions between numbers than can be unforgiving when choosing just one. Still, I think you’ve described a record that deserves a “3” while awarding it a “4.”
LikeLike
Perceptive! This grew enough on me while I was typing (not writing, typing) that it got bumped up to 4 at the last minute.
I thought I’d be criticised for being over-generous. I’m astonished, again, at the positive feeling towards this. Still, as always, and as it says in big letters up there, dissent is encouraged.
LikeLike
Hi Nixon & everyone! If it makes you feel better I would have given this a 1! I CANNOT STAND THIS SONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Never realized that Ted Hull had a hand in this. Can’t wait until my FAVORITE STEVIE B-side “Purple Raindrops” which was also penned by Mr. Hull.
To show how much I can’t stand this song– It was on a budget cassette tape of some Stevie songs that I had & I would actually take the time to fast forward to get past this monstrosity! Quick someone get me the pain reliever doctors recommend most! Okay a little overdramatic I guess.
Cheers all!
PS — Robb Klein & Damecia — Where are you? Haven’t seen any comments lately from either of you!
LikeLike
I just commented yesterday, and sent in a few label scans. I’m still around. I don’t like this song much. I’d give it a “3”.
LikeLike
Hi Robb! Glad to see someone agrees with me about this song! Hope you are doing well & having a good summer.
LikeLike
Thanks. I will enjoy it. In a week I’ll be traveling to Munich for a one-month visit with my best friend and business partner, to work on comic book and children’s book projects. Directly after that, I’ll be going to a comic art festival in Denmark in the last half of July, where I will be one of the honoured guests (2-week all expenses paid vacation). I’m doing a book/drawing signing and a seminar on cartooning. I’ll also make a short trip to visit friends in Norway, and spend a week visiting friends in Sweden.
LikeLike
When my sister Mary and I were in Rome in 1967 we picked up some Italian-language Motown singles. This was: Passo le mie notte qui da solo! – Not a single reference to a musical instrument anywhere. It was the flip side of ‘Il sole é di tutti’ – aka A Place in the Sun. I might go as far as a 5 for either the Italian or the English-language version, but I have no quarrel with your assessment. Excelsior (though I gather a pre-Everest detour is on the horizon, unless we’re in for a really unexpected surprise…)
LikeLike
For Stevie, or for Motown in general? There’s a rather lengthy and unexpected fallow period coming up as we traverse the month of August.
All the foreign-language Motown sides are collected on the recent Motown Around the World compilation, and from memory the 50th Anniversary sets for the Supremes, Tempts, Tops and Vandellas all include their Italian/Spanish/German sides, while the Velvelettes’ Anthology has got their French cuts on it.
LikeLike
@Nixad…wonder how “Don’t Look Back” sings in german.
Or..whats the phrase you use?? Ummm..scans in german?
LikeLike
ALL modern music (Rock, Soul, etc. sound LOUSY in German, and the lyrics have to be changed and cut down drastically. That is because German is a cumbersome language (compared to English and The Latin-based languages. It usually requires from 130-150% of English words/letters to convey a similar idea. Even Dutch and The Scandinavian languages (from the Germanic Group) have streamlined and cut down their cumbersomeness. Despite not liking to learn other nations languages (exemplified by their dubbing of all foreign films and TV shows-unlike we Dutch and all other small European countries), The Germans DO sing Rock and Soul music in English, because it just CAN’T be done reasonably, using German language. Actually, Soul sounds very funny in German. Just absolutely silly. Think of hearing “Reach Out(I’ll Be There)” played by an Alpen Oom-Pa-pa band (wearinng lederhosen and Bavarian or Tyrolian hats, and playing accordians, tubas and a lot of other brass instruments.
LikeLike
I didn’t invent the concept of scansion! It’s not a wacky word I’ve just made up, it’s been a key feature of Western poetry and music for thousands of years.
SCANSION 101
It’s really simple: in order to scan, your words as naturally spoken should match up with the metre you’re using. That means (a) the right number of syllables per line, and (b) the stressed syllables should naturally match the stresses of the metre.
Example. If your metre is, say, iambic pentameter (the classic rhythm of Shakespearean blank verse), then in order to scan properly, you’d need neatly divisible lines of 10 syllables, and every second syllable should be capable of being stressed. So:
I need to go and buy a pint of milk – scans well
I need to go out and buy some more milk – scans poorly (wrong stresses)
I need to go and buy a bottle of milk – scans poorly (wrong # of syllables, you need to run “bottle of” together to make this work)
I need to go out so I can buy some more milk – doesn’t scan at all.
Not every lyric has to scan, and even in a tightly-structured song or poem, intentionally throwing your metre by putting in a non-scanning line can be very effective (same as intentionally breaking the expected rhyme scheme), but for the majority of pop composers, scansion is an important consideration.
The best lyricists (like Smokey) can take long strings of multi-syllable words and fit them to a tune while still sounding natural, as well as matching the stresses and strengths of the vocalist and their normal accent. (Noel Coward and Gilbert & Sullivan have both been mentioned in past comment threads on the subject). By the same token, a talented vocalist can overcome poor scansion in a written lyric by clever delivery (e.g. by eliding or running together problem syllables, or adding in extra ones, and by subtly changing their delivery of certain words to move the stresses) – Ella Fitzgerald was a superb example of this kind of craft.
And that’s what “scanning” means.
LikeLike
yaaay! Thanks for the lesson! Being a former songwriter this should be second nature to me but the phrase we use over here is “Cut Time” or “Out of Meter”
LikeLike
I picked this up in the late ’70s during my collection period (I acquired the single before the LP); My focus began with Stevie Wonder then expanded to all of Motown. I felt the tempo to be awkward, especially to have a drum break in it and considered it to be no more than album filler. Even so, I harbor no malice against the song – I simply don’t play it anymore. I guess a “3” is dead-on lol
LikeLike
How much of a throwback was this? This is actually Stevies most mature vocal to date. He actually sounds 15/16. This actually sounds like a Motown 1965 single. I’m not saying its that great but it does sound like it could have been a top 40 r &b hit
LikeLike