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Gordy G 7002 (B), April 1962
B-side of Come Into My Palace
(Written by Mickey Stevenson and Lee Moore)
Doo-wop chancers Lee Henry Moore and his Leopards only had one single released by Motown, but where the A-side Come Into My Palace had been an unimpressive but somehow highly-rated clone of the Marcels’ Blue Moon, this B-side is just… odd.
No, it’s very strange. On the face of it, it’s a bluesier, slinkier bit of R&B than the calculatedly-inoffensive A-side, featuring an attractively soulful lead vocal and a sound in the vein of the Motown sides cut by the likes of Gino Parks and the excellently-named Henry Lumpkin. The bridge is a bit off-key, and the lyrics aren’t much to write home about, but it’s fun enough. But that’s not all.
No. For some reason, and nobody seems to have ever provided a sensible explanation for this, there are weird “quack quack” noises all over the song, as if someone were using a duck call. Even odder, I don’t think anyone actually is using a duck call, I think it’s just someone making duck call noises with their throat.
Seriously, it’s just… It’s just strange. The lyrics, as far as I can tell, don’t have anything to do with duck hunting, even at a stretch as a metaphor for something; the rest of the instrumentation is perfectly sensible (the liner notes to The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 2 note that Mickey Stevenson was responsible for putting the quacking noise on the track, as well as “cricket noises”, but I personally can’t hear any of those).
Very weird. It stops the song from being wholly forgettable, which it might have otherwise been, but only at the expense of turning it into a baffling curio. Still, if anyone out there was ever listening to a Henry Lumpkin record and thought “You know what? This is good and everything, but I wish it featured more quacking“, well, they’re in luck. Everyone else can safely skip this one.
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.
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| Lee & The Leopards “Come Into My Palace” |
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Motown Junkies 
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I think the “cricket noises” the liner notes refers to are just the claves.
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Sounds like rosewood claves to me (mostly playing the first two strokes of the pattern over and over).
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We didn’t agree on the “A” side, but I agree that this deserves only a “2”. It’s poorly written, non-memorable melody, not-so-enthusiastic singing. In short, a typical “throw-away” “B” side (not always typical of Motown).
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