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Motown M 1027 (B), May 1962
B-side of Your Heart Belongs To Me
(Written by Raynoma Liles Gordy and Marv Johnson)
In contrast to the charming, understated A-side Your Heart Belongs To Me, this B-side is a tuneless menace. Produced by Berry Gordy’s ex-wife Raynoma Liles Gordy, “Miss Ray” herself, this was co-written with Marv Johnson, who’d cut the very first record ever released by Motown, Come To Me back in January 1959.
This B-side, recorded in the summer of 1961, shelved, and eventually dusted off for release on this single, is a low point for everyone involved. Horrible, shrill, incompetent, unbelievably annoying… it’s three parts generic Fifties girl group dross, one part (presumably unintentional) avant garde noise terror, and far and away the worst thing to appear on either side of a Supremes single in the Sixties. Indeed, it’s among the worst material any line-up of the group ever recorded, period.
Nothing is good about this. The song is trite and irritating in the extreme. The lyrics are banal and stupid –
Seventeen / I’ve got a guy that is seventeen / I don’t care, because I’m just sixteen / And my guy is seventeen / He’s only seventeen
– which is bad enough by itself, but then those lyrics are somehow rendered even worse by Diana Ross’ terrible lead vocal, reedy and terrified, and the rest of the Supremes’ appalling backing vocals, which are worse than the ones they’d done for Mickey Woods.
Between them, the girls contrive to stretch syllables to breaking point, artlessly elongating words which don’t need elongating and with no apparent sense of scansion; they pronounce everything so bizarrely that those lyrics up there actually become:
Se-e-e-ven-teen (Seven-seven-seven-teen-hoho-hoho) / I’ve got a gu-uy that is se-e-e-ven-teen (Seven-seven-seven-teen-hoho-hoho)…
…Painful. And then just when you’re thinking it’s as bad as it’s going to get, there’s a surprise in store to prove you quite wrong; second verse, worse than the first:
He-e-e loves me-he-he-he-he (Hoho-hoho) / And we’re as ha-a-ppy as two-oo-oo can be-he-he-he (Hoho-hoho) / We have pledged our love e-ter-nol-ly / And my guy is seventee-een (dit dit dit dit doo doo doo)…
And then we get Diana Ross channeling the Everly Brothers in a highly wet interlude (I don’t know-oh-oh whether I shall ever let him go-go-go, don’tcha know-know-know), and, well, it’s far from “supreme”, let’s put it that way. She’d been on such great form on the A-side, but this is terrible, flat and off-key, to the point where I can’t understand why this was ever even considered for release at all. Yet the vocals, astonishingly, aren’t the weakest thing on display here.
The band performance can only be described as “poor”, a sloppy, uninspired hotch-potch of dated Fifties figures, augmented, if that’s the right word, by Miss Ray’s ubiquitous Ondioline, the same early analogue synthesizer instrument that can be heard buzzing all over the Marvelettes’ first album. Used sparingly and sensitively, the Ondioline can add greatly to a record – check out the Temptations’ magnificent (You’re My) Dream Come True, for example – but here it’s just wallpapered on, slathered carelessly over everything.
The true horror, though, comes with the middle eight at 1:36. A cheesy burst of Ondioline parping, like some sort of end-of-the-pier barrel-organ, heralds one of the worst half-minutes in Motown’s history. Meanwhile, the girls strike up a truly godawful “sassy” conversation-style interlude – well, I say “sassy” because I’m guessing that’s what it was meant to sound like, but in reality it’s just nonsensical and badly acted, one Supreme (possibly Barbara Martin) boasting to her astonished mates:
– Guess what, girls?
– Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?
– My guy is seventeen.
– Seven-TEEEEEEEEN?!
– Yeah, and guess what else, girls?
– Whaaaaaaat?
– I’m just SIX-teen.
– Six-TEEEEEEEEEEEN?!
– So come on!
Meanwhile, the Ondioline moves from cheesy riffs to great buzzing, honking stabs, wildly out of control, drowning out everything else on the track, to the point it actually veers close to becoming a novelty horror record – presumably unintentionally, but it really is close; all it’s missing is for Mary Wilson to suddenly break into a terrifying sinister laugh or start doing a comedy Dracula accent or something. Terrible, terrible, terrible.
I’m completely dumbfounded as to how this ever got past Quality Control, or whatever the rudimentary equivalent of Quality Control was back then. A blot on the CV of everyone concerned, this was still – incredibly – selected for inclusion on the Supremes’ first album Meet The Supremes later that year. They might have been better off simply leaving that space on the record blank, or printing up a bunch of speaker test signals or something.
D-, must try harder.
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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Thank you for giving this one the lambasting it has deserved for some time. Anyone who’s howled in pain at “I Want A Guy” or “My Heart Can’t Take it No More” had not listened enough to “He’s Seventeen.” I’ve loved the Supremes since I was 10 and have bought their records ever since, but even though they were few, my beloved Supremes laid a stink bomb or two, and “He’s Seventeen” is one of them.
To paraphrase the late Judith Crist, if this Miss Ray-produced fiasco were any more of a dog it would shed.
Now, I’m all the more curious of your opinion when you come to “The Man With the Rock and Roll Banjo Band…”
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I’d have preferred the ‘lambasting’ to have gone to the ‘A’ side – and what a horrible dirge it is!!! I’m saying this with no doubt whatsoever, after years (and more years) of living with both… but hey, each to his own. I’m also not at all appreciative of the saddo track the “A” side was compared to, Marvin’s “Soldier’s Plea”, which for me – and I’ll be kind here, is simply… unlistenable. But then again, after years (and more years) of living with Marvin’s ‘Mister Sandman’, there’s absolutely no chance that the intro of this particular piece of whatever you called it, will ever ever leave my head. Somehow it got in there when I not was looking, note-for-note, instrument-by-instrument, background vocals, all of it – and this happenned like, 40+ years ago! Hmmmmm.
Have nothing to say about the weird first comment (6.19.10 / 9pm) on this page Mister Radio Nixon, other than perhaps your spam filters may need a little tweaking, tightening up!
Have fun!
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Hey, the motto here is – and has always been – “dissent is encouraged”. I like Soldier’s Plea, though I wasn’t expecting to, but I’ve already had my say on it – and I’d rather there were lots of opinions spread all around the site, rather than just my own. So please feel free to disagree!
Re: the first comment: it’s a pingback – a “comment” created by another blog linking to this one. (These are identifiable by the radio mast symbol – click the “author” blog’s name to be taken to the post in question.) The spam filters here are very good, and I have to manually approve all comments before they appear to the public in any case – I usually approve pingbacks if they’re vaguely relevant, and decline them if they’re obviously spam. This one was a close call.
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This record is dangerous.
Since this review all the way back in June, I have not put it on any record player, but apparently in my time I’ve listened to it enough for it to the attach the same torturous power of such musical atrocities as “Seasons In The Sun,” “Kung Fu Fighting” and “You’ve Having My Baby.”
Since reading these lyrics, there I am on some ordinary day, not hurting anybody, and suddenly my brain attacks me with Florence, Barbara and Mary’s ho-ho, ho-ho‘s or Ross’s I love him so/so/so doncha know know know.
And if not that one, it’s he likes it greasy and sticky and gooey and salty … more butter/more butter/ more butter/ more.
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide indeed.
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The proprietors of this blog accept no liability for any visitors accidentally singing bits of, say, Little Water Boy in public.
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(Oh, also, if you or anyone else didn’t know, “Seasons In The Sun” is a horribly, horribly bowdlerised English version of a French song by Jacques Brel, Le Moribond – it’s not even a translation (though it’s officially classed as one), more a load of new sappy lyrics sung to the same tune. It’s actually meant to be darkly funny, rather than sorry.)
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Guess what girls? Whaaaat? This song really reeks! Guess else girls? Whaaaat? I don’t think anyones gonna buy it!
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I never do this, but…
🙂
(Also, I’d forgotten I managed to sneak a Ramones reference into this review. Go me, etc.)
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I think that with better lyrics. K Fu Fighting couldve been a good record. Carl Douglas does a pretty good Marvin Gaye vocal.
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Kung Fu Fighting, Seasons in the Sun, You’re Having My Baby….. 1974 was a strange year for pop music. Perhaps “He’s Seventeen” could have fit in as a hit single that year! (We also had Wednesday’s cover of “Last Kiss”, Sister Janet Mead’s “The Lord’s Prayer”, and Ray Stevens’ “The Streak” that year, not to mention Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods, so why not???).
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I’m not a big fan of Raynoma Gordy’s songwriting prowess, nor her production talents (either at Motown or Shrine Records. Her songs have no structure nor direction. The parts don’fit together (lead vocals, instrumental, background vocals).
It’s very interesting that Miss Ray claims to have played a significant and essential role in the founding and development of The Motown Record Corp. But, I think, rather, that she was dragged in for the ride on Berry’s coattails, and if anything, took up space in which one of Motown’s other early associates (Don Davis, anie Bradford, Popcorn Wylie, Cornelius Grant, Freddie Gorman, Dave Hamilton) might have done a better job, had they been given more opportunity that the vacuum of her vacancy might have provided.
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I could have yanked every key off that friggin Ondioline..that thing got quite a lot of mileage in the early 60s- Raynoma made sure the early Marvelettes albums sounded like something out of a Bella Luigosi/Boris Karloff horror movie. Oh, and that stupid banter between the girls is horror in itself.
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The Supremes recorded their share of clunkers, like everyone at Motown. But He’s Seventeen is not one of them; I go for this song every time I see it on one of the compilations. For sheer enjoyment and exuberance, it’s top notch. Sure, the girls were just “girls” at the time; they hadn’t taken Diana’s voice down a couple of notches yet; and the 50’s feel is definitely there. But so what! It’s a fun song that moves smartly and that is very enjoyable.
Now, Run Run Run, Let Me Go the Right Way, Never Again, Pretty Baby, and Buttered Popcorn deserve 1 or 2 or 3.
He’s 17 is a 7.
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The Internet is great, isn’t it? I mean, it would never have crossed my mind that anyone would stick up for this one, so it’s amazing to find such a spread of opinions out there. Obviously, I disagree (obviously!), but I’ve had my say already – if anyone else out there loves this, more power to you. It’s important to ignore what I say and listen to the records for yourself if you can!
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“Run, Run, Run” is my favourite Supremes’/Primettes’ recording. Tastes will differ.
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Oh come on, “Let Me Go The Right Way” is a damn fine tune!
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I’ll be one of the few to stick up for this track. I find it delightfully teenaged and appropo for its time. What were they, maybe 15 or 16 years old? The song has an innocence to it that I have always found appealing. Perhaps it can be said that it’s so bad, it’s good? Anyway, I still listen to it.
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I like it too and for many of the same reasons Rick Bueche has stated. I thought the entire Meet The Supremes album was fun. They were young girls having fun and the music was fun. I do agree that with later albums production got better but I enjoy this material for what it’s worth. And I can’t help humming along with this tune and smiling all the while. Art is subjective. Personally, I’d have to back to pre-Meet The Supremes material before finding something I just can’t listen to by the group.
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I’m just coming to this thread today because I just listened to the expanded-CD version of Meet the Supremes (got it the other day). When I tracked down the 1965 reissue of the lp back in 1976, this was one of my favorite cuts and still is. I haven’t listened to that album in years, as I don’t have a turntable anymore. It’s just a fun song. I wouldn’t analyze it deeply or read much into it. Just four very young girls having fun in the recording studio. I never knew the Raynoma connection to this song, but it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t know much about her. I’m just a Supremes fan and I really like this song, always have.
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This proves to me that The Supremes were not a doo wop group. Pop & later R&B was their thing. I’m a die hard Ross/Supremes fan and this does suck! I like this song way better on the Sound of Music lol. I always wondered what that loud noise was thanx for introducing me to the Ondioline. The Funk Brother definitely weren’t on this song and this definitely was the Motown sound. Miss Ross hadn’t figured out her voice yet and the girls hadn’t figured out how to harmonize. A mess!
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I like Flo, Mary, and Barbara’s backing vocals. They’re the best part. They remind me of The Andantes. The song itself is so-so, but Flo, Mary, and Barbara did good. They saved the song from the garbage bin. I’d give it a 5 out of 10 (only because of the backing vocals).
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RIP Barbara Martin, a Supreme from 1960-61. She can be heard on most of the tracks on the MEET THE SUPREMES album, and she did the spoken word part on “He’s Seventeen”.
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I love this Song. For me Doo wop is the best music and the begginning of all, including Motown and major part of soul groups. Your article has no sense sorry…..
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