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Tamla T 54072 (B), October 1962
b/w Strange I Know
(Written by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Freddie Gorman)
Expecting this to match the impossible standards of the A-side, Strange I Know, would be an unfair task – but this is a bit of a disappointment nonetheless.
Despite being written by the same songwriters, produced by the same producer (Brian Holland), and recorded at the same time as the topside (during the sessions for the Playboy LP), this is a brief, forgettable, skimpy little sketch, an off-the-rack girl group number with no chorus and no hooks that feels far shorter than its two and a half minutes’ duration.
None of which is to say it’s bad, or anything – music and performances are perfectly adequate, nothing’s glaringly wrong with it, but then nothing’s really outstanding either; everything is OK. Remarkably average, if you will.
Lyrically, it’s a bit more interesting, but not necessarily in a good way. Gladys Horton, on far from her best form vocally but still pretty good, narrates a story about how, essentially, she thinks her friends are idiots, falling for guys with no substance who are just using them – she then complains that she’s been openly voicing these opinions to said friends, telling them to dump those jerks, which will sort their lives out, and emphasises that there’s no way she would fall for that sort of trick.
Now, if the lyrics to this had been written by Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier’s later lyrical partner, Brian’s big brother Eddie – or, for that matter, if they’d been written by, say, Smokey Robinson, or Norman Whitfield, or later Frank Wilson, or Ashford and Simpson – by some of Motown’s “character” songwriters, anyway – there might have been a neat twist in the tale, where we perhaps discovered that the narrator was herself being strung along in exactly the same way but too blind to see it, or something. It might have ended up as a neat character piece, along the lines of the Holland-Dozier-Holland team’s lovely He Won’t Be True (Little Girl Blue), as recorded by the Marvelettes less than a year later – there, the narrator goes against her friends’ advice, carries on in her delusional state, convincing herself her errant boy is still The One, even as the backing vocals and the title of the song are telling her quite explicitly that he’s not. It’s a sweet little vignette that both rings true and makes the character extremely sympathetic.
Contrast to this, where Gladys’ character comes across as the most irritating kind of “friend” there is, smug and bossy, unsympathetic to her friends’ “talking about their heartache / and crying oceans of tears” because they’re “weak” – if it was her, “she’d make those silly boys see”. She gets cross because she doesn’t understand why her friends have been so pathetic as to shack up with these characters in the first place, especially when she warned them what would happen.
(Like, I don’t know, maybe they didn’t want to be single? Maybe they looked at you and didn’t fancy that as a lifestyle choice? I mean, if all you can do when your best mate is in floods of tears is retort with a smug “I told you so” (actually, it’s an “I told you so” with bells on, since it’s actually more of an “I told you so – and I’d never be so stupid”), it’s not presenting you in a very good light, you know?… And various other thoughts. Now, perhaps that’s the subtext the writers were going for, but I doubt it – I think we’re meant to fall firmly on the narrator’s side here, though she gives us precious little reason to do so. Pity poor Gladys Horton for having such unsympathetic words put in her mouth.)
But our heroine then goes a step further: there’s a bit in the middle where the narrator refers to Marvelette Juanita (Wyanetta) Cowart by name, a clunky trick device which I hated in the Supremes’ Back In My Arms Again and which I don’t like here. Listening to the Supremes’ record – you know the one? How can Mary tell me what to do, when she lost her love so true? And Flo, she don’t know, ‘cos the boy she loves is a Romeo, that one? Anyway, I used to always think “Diana, shush! They’re right there, standing two feet away – how can you talk about them like this?!” It instantly casts not just the narrator but also the singer in a bad light, bulldozing the fourth wall for no benefit at all. And it’s the same here.
It made me so mad when I saw Juanita taking in that playboy’s jive / I told her once and I told her twice he’d take her love and leave her cold as ice… A hint to the wise should be sufficient enough… it boils my blood to see a girl so weak…
With friends like these, eh?
I’m going over the top, I know – it doesn’t really bother me that much. It’s just to illustrate how easy a lyrical mis-step – a bad central idea, poor casting, or sloppy choices of phrasing (or all three, as we have here) – can derail a perfectly good, serviceable song.
Freddie Gorman, the “singing mailman” and future Original, was the original lyricist with Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier’s budding tunesmith partnership. If the A-side marked the high point of his work in that capacity – a masterpiece of minimalist expression, telling a novel’s worth of story on the back of a postage stamp by giving exactly enough information to the listener for them to fill in the rest with their imagination – then this B-side is a corresponding low. It was one of the last things Freddie wrote with Holland and Dozier, his day job with the US Postal Service already making it difficult for him to keep hours with the duo’s notorious all-night writing sessions; he eventually found himself squeezed out. Both sides of this single featured on the Marvelettes’ fourth album, The Marvelous Marvelettes, released the following February; by that time, Gorman had already effectively been replaced as a member of the songwriting trio.
But that’s another story. This is a totally average-sounding early-Sixties girl group record with poorly-conceived, unsympathetic lyrics. Despite all that, the Marvelettes and the band still carry out their tasks with professional aplomb, meaning it’s hard to mark this too harshly; still, compared to the A-side, this can’t help but be a major disappointment.
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 The Marvelettes? Click for more.)
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The Marvelettes “Strange I Know” |
The Vells “You’ll Never Cherish A Love So True (Until You Lose It)” |
Okay, I’ll give you a little (always respectful) dissent here, because personally I have to give this one at least a 7.
I didn’t hear it the first time until I was 22. I’ll grant its faults: it’s decidedly teenage, the lyrics little more sophisticated than some jump-rope chat, and I was always careful about who was around when I let myself enjoy it.
Nevertheless, I can’t listen to it without finding Gladys’s put-on female bravado endearing. After all, she isn’t even 18 yet, far too young to be impermeable to all of love’s trickery, but I like listening to her sounding like she’s convinced at least herself. I can’t hear it without tenderly these young girls who really don’t what they’re talking about yet.
Of course “Strange I Know” is vastly more emotionally rich, and allows connection with it no matter what age we get to be, but I enjoy the guilty pleasure of this side too 🙂
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No need to be respectful (I’m frequently not!); people may say whatever they like, and as long as it’s actually disagreement and not just gratuitous personal abuse, I’ll publish it. I’m not precious about my opinions or my marks!
I don’t dislike the song as a whole (though the lyrics do grate, as explained above), and I’d never considered it to sound infantile before, so it’s interesting that you think of it that way. It’s just never really done anything for me personally.
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Sorry mate, had to disagree. Definately a 7. Although I might be a bit biased because I always find it hard not to like anything that either of the Holland brothers or Lamont Dozier was involved in. I just love all their music. Keep up the great work, fantasic information you are providing.
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Thanks Michael, much appreciated. And no need to apologise – dissent is encouraged! (Indeed, it’s one of the reasons I started putting the marks on these reviews in the first place.)
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the main reason I LOVE this track is that I like it and can’t really tell you why. It didn’t even make my first cut when going through the hip-0 compilation myself.
But going back to it I was astonished to find myself listening all the way through and then immediately playing it again. ?????????. Perhaps, for me, it makes it on pure attitude. who knows. My favorites are always the ones I can’t rationalize. 🙂
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I think we all are respectful because we all understand we come together with a great common bond.
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It’s not that I disagree with your views on “Back in My Arms Again.” That’s your opinion. However, using the girls’ names in the song was brilliant marketing. Motown was trying to establish the Supremes’ individual identities and prompt their audience recognize them by name. It’s no coincidence that “More Hits by the Supremes” also has Florence, Diana and Mary with their names above their pics. That’s the album where “Back” appears. This album and string of hits came after the earliest appearances on Ed Sullivan, so Gordy is just trying to establish his brand. H-D-H were probably given a directive and, if so, I’m sure Gordy was pleased with the results.
It’s interesting that you mention the use of names in “Back” while talking about “Too Strong.” I think of “Back in My Arms Again” whenever I hear “Too Strong.” Naming Juanita probably was an attempt to give one of the Marvelettes an identity, but when you don’t put the girls’ faces on your early albums and you have five group members and you name the one who leaves or isn’t even the lead singer, then your efforts fall flat. “Back” takes the kernel of that earlier idea and uses it in a more fully developed way.
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Had to disagree with you on this one old chap! Not only do i love this song but it is as relatable to teens as to adults. After all how many of us guys have or have had a girlfriend whose girlfriends dislike you for no reason? I know i’ve rocked in that boat quite a few times!!
Besides i thought this record had one of the hippest lyrics of the year–
…”If it was me/i’d make those silly boys see/ain’t nothing they could do to put the hurt on me”
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Did anyone else know The Orlons covered this song? That shocked me. I mean, one of the biggest groups in 1962-1963 covering a Motown B-side. Well, a Marvelettes B-side. The Marvelettes were pretty big around this time as well, so it makes sense (I guess).
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I’d give this nicely-written, bouncy Holland-Dozier-Gorman song a 6. I like it a lot. It’s better than the “run-of-the-mill” Motown crankout cuts that would get a 5 from me.
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I agree it’s better than average. Apparently, so do The Orlons.
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Given that the whole lead/chorus contrapuntal concept is so important to this type of music, and given that it’s an African concept brought to a very high artistic level in gospel, and given that Gordy & B. Holland (who produced this one) had easy access to several excellent gospel groups under contract, I find it very surprising and disappointing that the background vocals on tracks like this are so weak and out-of-tune. I guess the reasoning is that the “girl group” presentation required beautiful, nubile, teenage-or-close-to-teenage stage performers to project that commercially viable “-ette” group identity, but wow, couldn’t they have brought in a couple of the gospel gals just for the recording session? Or even to make a demo for the ‘ettes to practice with?
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Kevin, you’re missing the point here. These are kids singing about kids and their romances. No need to drag some older, more mature folks from church to get involved in such unrelated matters…….Now as for you, Steve: It doesn’t appear that you have spent much time in American black ghettos. If you had, you would soon realize (that’s how we spell realise in the states) that the lyrics of this sing is precisely the way ghetto kids, boys and girls speak to snd about one another. If you don’t have thick skin and can’t handle the smack talk, you’d better lock yourself in your home. It was so in the 60s, and it still is today. You can take all that sensitivity talk and toss it in the nearest rubbage bag. So, having disposed of the language issue, let’s get back to the music and give it the 8 it deserves. I purchased this original 45 record back in ’62 or early ’63 and still love both sides today……Speaking of purchases, I bought all 14 Complete Motown Singles volumes in 2015 and am in the process of creating a chronological R&B catalogue containing these songs and the contents of my Atlantic R&B, Cameo Parkway, James Brown, Stax-Volt, and Philadelphia International box sets. As I catalogue the songs. I play them, before I play any Motown number, I thoroughly read your essay on it. Needless to say, ghetto or not, you are doing a doing a spectacular job, and I will be consulting your work for years to come.
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