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Tamla T 54025 (A), June 1959
b/w Don’t Say Bye Bye
(Written by Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson)
William “Smokey” Robinson and the Miracles were an integral part of Motown’s success, from beginning to end; Smokey was a vice-president of the company, a crucial palette-mixer and sounding-board for Berry Gordy the songwriter, a key producer in the Hitsville stable, and also a superb singer and songwriter in his own right who fronted a brilliant group and ended up with so many classic hits that nobody could gather enough sticks to shake at them.
Ironic, then, that the first Smokey Robinson record released on Motown was this ridiculous load of stupid shit. That’s right; Robinson, credited here as “Bill” (hopefully to avoid being linked forever more with such a duff song – “Ron” was Miracle Ronnie White, presumably equally embarrassed), made his Motown performing bow with this fuck-awful novelty record about a funny little alien. Apparently this was meant to be a rip-off of Sheb Wooley’s then-recent, almost equally awful hit Purple People Eater, recorded in the hope of picking up a few sales off the back of that record’s success.
(This was something Motown did quite a few times in the early years, before it had any faith in the skill of its own songwriters and performers to break hits on their own – indeed, even after having a few hit records, Motown kept on churning out homages, “answer records” and plain rip-offs, even of its own material.)
A fair enough plan, I suppose, except that it somehow manages to be even less good than Purple People Eater. I mean, at least that had an easily-sung chorus, whereas this… well, this is just embarrassing. It’s actually slightly too intelligent for its own good, not quite dumb enough to go for the mass market with proper abandon, and so it just ends up crashing between two stools and breaking its legs in a ghastly accident. No, really, it’s rubbish. The “chorus” is just a hard-to-sing string of “oh oh oh oh oh”s that sound like the Everly Brothers warming up before a show, the lyrics are childish, the story goes nowhere, and Smokey sounds entirely unenthused throughout.
The lesson to be learned was that Purple People Eater was a stupid, catchy novelty singalong song about an alien, and it became a hit single. It was a stupid novelty song about an alien, but it wasn’t catchy and you couldn’t sing along to it, and it didn’t become a hit single. In fact, it disappeared without trace, even though no less a power than Chess Records had picked it up for national distribution.
Quite comfortably the worst of the six Motown singles released thus far (though it would be challenged handily for its crown of badness by some later stinkers), this is a blot on the copybook of everyone concerned. Obviously, this is one of the songs that didn’t have its master tape lost or destroyed prior to The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 1 being compiled, so you can today enjoy this load of utter arse in lovely CD clarity. Great.
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 Smokey Robinson & the Miracles? Click for more.)
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| The Swinging Tigers “Snake Walk (Part 2)” |
Ron & Bill “Don’t Say Bye Bye” |
Motown Junkies 
Somebody must have believed in the record to think it merited national distribution…the story of ET before its time.
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Love your truly-true comments. BUT, I would counter that Smokey still hadn’t gotten into his groove yet. He had quite a few sound-alike songs in the early years that Berry should have either fired him or told him “Listen, Smoke, write me ten songs similar to Come To Me. It’s the only f*cking record that’s paid any bills around here”. My take is Berry was running ragged doing everything, Smokey was a good sidekick. Again, why is Berry wasting money on non-formula records? It should be noted Berry must have been getting a little lean on cash. If it weren’t for royalties from Jackie Wilson and Marv Johnson, I think Motown would have been toast right here, in June, 1959. Last record…..IT by Ron and Bill!!
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Wow your brutal honesty is funny and right on point! It’s so interesting how things work out.
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I quote you when I say this song is a “ridiculous load of stupid shit.” LOL. I wasn’t expecting to hear this kind of language on here Nixon! This totally unexpected quote has made my day = )
It seems that Motown was doing what I and hundreds of other artist do on Youtube today, which is make a cover song of a current pop hit or freestyle to the chart topping rap song out right now, in hopes of people clicking on our videos just to make our numbers go up and hopefully they look through more of our videos and actually see that we do make original music. Hopefully they like it and become fans. It is true nothing under the sun is new!
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There are a few cuss-words scattered through the site, it’s true. I don’t like to be too coarse, but sometimes it’s the only way to properly convey something.
I had a look at some of your videos, you have a nice voice!
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Thank you and yeah sometimes the only way to get a point across effectively is to curse lol = )
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In written English, I think that 99% of the the time, using cuss-words is a form of laziness and the sign of a poor vocabulary since there is no time-constraint on the writer coming up with a more appropriate, less offensive word.
However, in the other 1% of the time, I agree that some records, as the Nixon Administration said above, really are just plain “fuck-awful”.
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(LOL) = )
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I agree this song lyrics soy ds wacky I thought he was talking a bout a dog or something. To me the horrible song is well disguised by the nice sounds and the oh’s. Smokey and Ron knew better than this. But they’re both great singers. I give it 3/10
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Maybe it’s “shit” if you’re lacking in a sense of humor or an appreciation of 1950s crazy outer space stuff, or if you take pop music (or yourself) a little too seriously.
So OK, it ain’t “Tracks of My Tears” but it makes me smile every time I hear it, which is more than I can say for lots of other records that people seem to love.
All record companies tried to ride on the coattails of other’s successes, and Motown often cannibalized their own records, which explains stuff like Heatwave / Quicksand, or Where Did Our Love Go / Baby Love. Standard practice, nothing to get upset about.
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This song isn’t very good. But it’s not all that terrible. I’d give it a 3. “People From Another World” by The Jive Five on Beltone Records is a better example of how to do what Berry and Smokey were aiming towards with this one.
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You’re crazy. This is a wonderful song. The apex of man’s attempt at recording.
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Here’s a link to The Jive Five’s example of a good novelty “Spaceman” song:
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OK, so this does put things into the kind of context that someone who wasn’t from the era misses. This helps me to see “It” slots in with what was going on at the time.
I always appreciate when someone gives this kind of perspective, thanks Rob! Always among the best of the responders here and Soulful D!
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I rather liked Sheb Wooley’s “Purple People Eater”, but then I was only 11 at the time and keen on astronomy.
Little Lisa recorded a version of this which can be downloaded from the UMC digital release “Motown Unreleased – 1965”
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I listened to “It” on You-Tube, as well as “My Daddy Knows Best”. BOTH are from 1965, and have super background instrumental tracks by The Funk Brothers. Both have fabulous drum work (I believe by Benny Benjamin and Pistol Allen. Wow! I wish The Marvelettes’ vocal for “My Daddy Knows Best” would have been put over those 1965 tracks for Little Lisa’s, and Ron and Bill’s “It” would have been placed over that 1965 background.
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“Slightly too intelligent for its own good?” You make a fair point. The “chorus” is comprises “a hard-to-sing string of ‘oh oh oh oh oh’ s”? Maybe until the Novocaine wears off, but not otherwise! All told, the reviewer doth protest too much, methinks!
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“Slightly too intelligent for its own good?” You make a fair point. The “chorus” comprises “a hard-to-sing string of ‘oh oh oh oh oh’ s”? Maybe until the Novocaine wears off, but not otherwise! All told, the reviewer doth protest too much, methinks!
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There are no words to convey the utter head-scratching level of “what -did-I-just-listen-to”ness I’ve just survived. I agee with the review (and did some pretty fine laughing with you inimitable writing style.)
I guess though, considering how young Smokey was AND that he was trying to write a novelty tune, I have to give some kind of credit.
Smokey was a master with words and it may have just been way, way too hard to dumb it down for this kind of tune. Rather like asking Anthony Hopkins to play Al Bundy on Married With Children.
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