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Tamla T 54073 (AA), November 1962
b/w Happy Landing
(Written by Smokey Robinson)
Oriole CBA 1795 (A), January 1963
b/w Happy Landing
(Released in the UK under license through Oriole Records)
So, yeah, this was originally the B-side of a largely-forgotten record, the upbeat Happy Landing. Both songs were taken from the forthcoming Miracles LP The Fabulous Miracles, and despite one being an uptempo rocker and the other a ballad deep enough to drown an elephant, the two share plenty of similarities. They were both recorded on the same day, during the same session. They were both heavily inspired by Sam Cooke records: the A-side by Having A Party, and this B-side by Bring It On Home To Me. They’re both based around the same musical gimmick, Marv Tarplin providing two unforgettable, but almost interchangeable, twangy guitar riffs.
Of course, it’s now known that Motown had backed the wrong horse. Upon release, Happy Landing went nowhere, but once DJs started flipping the record over, You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me pushed this single to rack up sales of more than a million copies and sailed effortlessly to the top of the R&B charts, the Miracles’ second such R&B #1 hit. So it goes in the music business; you never can tell.
Well, alright, sometimes you can, obviously. But despite this song’s subsequent success, it’s still easy to understand why Happy Landing, a fine uptempo rocker of a record, was the more promising of the two sides, and thus a wholly understandable choice of single. Many accounts written after the fact make it out to be almost unfathomable that You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me wasn’t originally thought of that way, but it makes sense enough without the benefit of hindsight.
You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me – “You’ve” is correct, incidentally, rather than “You”; it seems to have been the Beatles who retitled the song after the line Smokey actually sings on the record – was famously written by a bored and frustrated Smokey Robinson in his hotel room while on a business trip to New York in his capacity as Motown vice-president, and seems to have started out as little more than a freely-admitted attempt to write a ballad in the style of the aforementioned Sam Cooke record. In interviews, it almost comes across as though this were an experiment, a diverting little project that wasn’t meant to come to anything. Instead, it’s become a monument, one of Smokey’s most famous songs.
A lot of that, of course, has to do with the Beatles, but their very famous cover version, done only a few months after the original was released – an earnest, well-meaning tribute to a great record they’d discovered, no mean feat when this record was never a hit in the UK – is clumsy and stumbling by comparison. (Of course, even the Miracles’ version is a little clumsy and stumbling in places, probably reflecting its relatively rushed recording and its original lack of priority in Motown’s future plans for the group.)
Anyway. This is both better than, and a step back from, Sam Cooke’s hit. It’s a step back, in that it draws far more heavily on the standard traditions of doo-wop than Bring It On Home To Me, which had consciously been trying to move away from that kind of ballad. You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me, with its gently pounded Fifties piano backing and 6/8 tempo, is almost comforting in its familiarity. Even when working in a largely fixed, restrictive format, though, Smokey is still clever enough to add a few tricks and touches to keep the listener’s attention; right at the beginning, he starts the record out of time, opening with two bars of piano to mark out the tempo before bringing in Marv and the rest of the band to lay down a groove so all-consuming you have to stop whatever it is you’re doing and listen.
It’s also better than Cooke’s record, because it’s simply a stronger song. Built over a very simple framework, the basic building blocks of the song are off-the-rack doo-wop tropes; what elevates this above those raw ingredients are a veritable basket full of hooks, and a clever lyric.
The purported single, Happy Landing, had a fairly trite and bland lyrical theme (she’s going to drop you, pal!) and no clever wordplay beyond the title, while this, ostensibly the throwaway B-side, turns out to be – perhaps unintentionally – one of Smokey’s deepest, most searching examinations of what it means to really love someone. He’d already given us one side of that coin in I’ll Try Something New, of course, a song in which his narrator pledged his love by promising a series of increasingly grand gestures; now, we get something else, namely obsession beyond reason.
I don’t like you – but I love you, he declares, right at the very start; but that’s because, or maybe despite, the fact that in the next line he’s laying his soul bare (Seems that I’m always thinking of you… is that guilt, frustration, an attempt at an apology?) The depth of his disgust – either with the person he’s singing to, or with himself – is made palpably clear throughout the song. I wanna leave you, don’t wanna stay here, don’t want to spend another day here… – his every rational instinct is telling him to head for the hills.
But love isn’t rational. Though you treat me badly, I love you madly – “madly” here given many meanings, readable as an expression of depth, sanity, whatever. Just in case the audience wasn’t getting it from all the contradictory emotions his lyric is serving up, Smokey seals the depths of his feeling with his most impassioned lead vocal to date, infusing the title with wholly believable angst – You really got a hold on me – with all the emphasis on that word, “hold”, such that the listener has to sit up and think about what they just heard.
There are endless questions to be asked here; what’s the nature of the “hold” the object of Smokey’s affections really has on him? Does he resent it, or is he grateful his deeper emotions stop him from storming out over surface arguments? Is he even in a relationship with this person, or just attracted to them despite himself? You can read the song either way, and more besides, and it’s that which makes this a great lyric – not the fun wordplay, or the unusual idea of putting intentional contradictions throughout the song in the first place.
Hooks! I almost forgot. This song also has plenty of hooks. There’s the great call-and-response bit at 2:30, where the Miracles sing “hold me!” and Smokey shouts “Please!”; the group sings “hold me!” and Smokey shouts “Squeeze!”, which will stick in your head for days afterwards (and which is itself a fun callback to an earlier bit (at 1:26) where Smokey just sang “hold me! hold me!” on his own, something that sets the scene for the later section). There’s the superb break at 1:37, complete with horns, rattling drum fills, and Smokey’s implored request, which sounds like it has a full stop rather than an exclamation mark: “Tighter.” And, of course, there’s that Marv Tarplin guitar riff, so perfectly judged, marking this out from a thousand other early-Sixties pseudo-doo-wop contenders.
There’s stuff wrong with the record, too, of course, stuff which – for me, anyway – stops this ever being quite as good as it could be (indeed, and this has only just occurred to me, stuff which means that the record, while it’s playing, is never quite as perfect as I remember it being). For starters, the vocals are handled by both Smokey and Bobby Rogers together through most of the verses, an early approach to double-tracking that never quite works. In the parts where Smokey sings alone (the chorus and the last line of each verse), he sounds great, but the harmonies between Smokey and Bobby aren’t perfect, with quite a few faintly jarring moments – most noticeably in the very first line (“I don’t like you, but I love you”). The Beatles, faithfully copying the Miracles original, make the same error in their version, and any number of other Sixties covers do the same thing – but the song’s always worked better with a solo lead, for my money anyway.
Also, as I said before, Marv Tarplin aside, it’s hard to put my finger on it, but there’s something ever so very slightly out about the whole thing, as if everyone involved might have liked just one more take to really get things spot on, so that the record never quite “gels” in the way its creators seem to want, never quite becomes the lush, all-enveloping ballad the song calls for.
It’s still a remarkable piece of work, a good record and a genuinely great song; this, more than any other, would become remembered as the sound of the early Miracles. How much of that was the Beatles’ doing is open to debate, but the fact remains that even if this isn’t quite as good as it could have been, it’s still very good indeed. You can certainly see how the lads from Liverpool were so entranced that they had to cut their own version, at any rate; a beautiful song, not quite done justice, and with enough room for improvement to encourage further attempts.
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.)
The Miracles “Happy Landing” |
The Contours “Shake Sherrie” |
Dave L said:
8’s good 🙂 With such a bounty to choose from, Hold would always be in my top 20 favorite Miracles songs but never at the very top. In that place, I’ll Try Something New, Save Me, Would I Love You, …Mirage, A Fork In The Road and Choosey Beggar are constantly yielding one to the other.
I think it’s in the wonderful, accompanying booklet to the four-disc 35th Anniversary set that Bobby Rogers states how extremely generous Smokey was about assigning co-songwriting credits to the other guys in the group -Tarplin included- “often on songs,” Rogers freely admits, “Smokey could have easily finished alone.” Smokey’s idea, of course, and with an eye on the future, was to make sure all the guys would have the steady income from song publishing when the days of recording and live performance were over. It must have worked well enough, because I’ve never read the story of any original Miracle meeting a Florence Ballard-style downfall. It had to also make Smokey the kind of leader you’d never want to fail to please.
I’ve also read, in more than one place, that because he was a singer himself, when working with other artists, Smokey would do everything possible to make the recording session relaxed and comfortable. There too, the results are proof, and often legendary. His body of work with Mary Wells and David Ruffin assured the musical immortality of both, and the sexiness he drew forth in Wanda Young Rogers still astonishes and rewards me. ( I listened to Hunter a couple times just today.)
You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me must have made Christmas 1962 a very happy one for every member of this group. 🙂
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S.L.H. said:
Great review of the song!! But wasn’t it Bobby Rodgers the one singing unison co-lead with Smokey? And The Beatles (with John Lennon and George Harrison on lead) wasn’t the last to sing the song like this, as The Supremes and The Temptations did as well (and with possible same “error” on their versions as well (as well as possible more).
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The Nixon Administration said:
Thanks SLH – it was of course Bobby, and I’ve amended the review accordingly.
Almost every Sixties cover of the song treats the verses as a duet – I just singled out the Beatles’ version because that’s the one most people will be familiar with, to show that it wasn’t just the Miracles that made what I consider to be a mistake. Hopefully that’s a bit clearer now!
Thanks again.
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YourOldStandBy said:
I like The Beatles version more. Dare I say that Smokey’s rendition is just a little too heavy on the R&B side for me? I mean, I love Smokey Robinson and acknowledge the fact that he wrote a hell of a song here, but this, the original version, just seems a little clunky. I can’t really pinpoint it. It’s not that it’s a bad record, because it’s not. I guess maybe what I’m saying is that this is a pop song and while The Miracles go all out R&B, the Fab Four give it the pop-mid tempo ballad feel that it needs. Ditto Please Mr Postman, as well.
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Michael Landes said:
I totally agree with the reviewer. One of Smokey’s best crafted songs, and a great performance too, and yet………. something is not quite right. I just want to hear them have another go at it. And this is rare for a Smokey side. As a rule, even with his weaker stuff, I feel like he’s given it his best shot.
On a side note, as the Beatles have already been mentioned, I’m equally ambivilent about John’s version. I like his run at it very much except ……… his voice is sooooooo nasal on the track that just getting through it is rough sledding for me.
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Governor Milton P. Shapp said:
Compared to the Miracles version, the Beatles sound like a German marching band- they could never begin to approximate the groove and the feel that the funk brothers achieve here, and Lennon was never as subtle and deep a vocalist as Smokey was (or is).
The Miracles record is a bit sloppy in places, but that’s what makes it real. Polish (shininess, not the nationality) is vastly overrated.
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Landini said:
Hey my man, Welcome! You should check out Sonny & Cher’s remake of this. It sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it does (sort of in its own way). Of course, the Miracles still own this!
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Governor Milton P. Shapp said:
Thanks! I will… sounds quite interesting!
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Robb Klein said:
Sonny & Cher sang a remake of this??? I’ve never heard that. That should be interesting.
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bogart4017 said:
The instrumentation is a little rusty as time goes on but the record still stands up with the best of “early Motown”.
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Joe said:
“Error”? It’s an unconventional harmony, granted, starting a perfect fourth below the melody, and moving up to a major third below the melody on the word “like,” but I think it does the arrangement a disservice to describe it as an error. In fact, I like it!
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Kevin Moore said:
Yes to everything Joe says above. The use of fourths was a major feature of the Beatles’ style and their harmonies on this song are entirely intentional and correct. The Smokey version is kind of muddy down there – it’s not nearly as precise and “composed” as the Beatles version – but I’m quite sure the 4ths are intentional there as well and equally sure that it was Smokey who provided the initial inspiration for the overall concept, which the Beatles then made their own and used everywhere. It was a huge deal – not so much for the odd, somewhat haunting parallel 4ths sound but because allowing that broke the formulaic tyranny of parallel thirds and opened the door for many other creative departures such that harmonies were part of the songwriting process rather than an orchestrational technique with a predictable result. Here’s a youtube channel where a guy has meticulously reverse engineered Beatles harmonies – https://www.youtube.com/user/imcarrying/videos – he sometimes has a slight Italian accent, but his accuracy on the parts is absolutely phenomenal and you can see just how meticulously the Beatles and George Martin worked this stuff out. Of course, as this track reveals, they most certainly didn’t invent the idea – in addition to Smokey, that Sam Cooke song you were talking about in this same essay has the same sort of creative freedom months earlier. Smokey and Sam may have winged the harmonies rather than composing them, and in Smokey’s case, not every choice was ideal although the overall effect worked well enough to have inspired The Beatles’ style going forward! But the Beatles had a much more compositional approach. They either worked it out and played it live a million times, or did enough takes in the studio to make every nuance intentional. If you can pull off on the fly what Sam Cooke’s backup guy did on Bring It On Home, more power to you, and if you work it out precisely like the Beatles, that’s great too, so now, after all this, I finally come around to agreeing with Nix in as much as the harmonies on the Smokey track probably should have been given more care. The idea, however, was to die for.
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Kevin Moore said:
Wow – who sings the vocal counter melody (it’s more than a “harmony part”) on Sam Cooke’s Bring it on Home?
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Robb Klein said:
Lou Rawls
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Kevin Moore said:
Wow! Was Rawls famous yet at that point? Did this song really first come out in 1962? Does the Soulful Detroit site (or any other) have any Sam Cooke related resources as you recall?
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Robb Klein said:
No. Lou Rawls was mainly only known by Gospel fans and Soul fans from Chicago and L.A. as early as 1962. Yes, that song was released in Spring 1962. Soulful Detroit was heavily related mainly to Detroit Soul when it started in 2001. But, quickly, it’s main forum, expanded to discuss ALL Soul music, and so, there are general Soul experts on that website, as well. But, there are only official website “webisodes” (biographies, histories and discographies of labels or work of famous producers, from Detroit labels and artists. However, there are discographies, complete with label scans of non-Detroit record companies, and discographies and discussions of individual groups, solo artists, producers, company owners, musicians of other cities in individual threads.
Are you located in The U.K.? Your times online see more like Europe than North America.
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Kevin Moore said:
Here’s a really fascinating hopefully “fair use” excerpt from Robustelli’s Beatles analysis book, “I Want to Tell You”:
“Lennon has often stated his love for Smokey Robinson and The Miracles and the great influence their music had on him. As late as 1980, Lennon was still trying to sing like Smokey as evidenced by his performance on Woman from the Double Fantasy album. While he was recording his vocal for the hit single about his wife, Yoko, she commented that John sounded like a Beatle. Lennon corrected her stating, “Actually I’m supposed to be Smokey Robinson at the moment, my dear, because The Beatles were always supposing that they were Smokey Robinson.” (Turner, p. 35) The influence of Robinson’s songs on Lennon in particular was evident on Ask Me Why and There’s A Place from Please Please Me, but Lennon’s songs on With The Beatles would solidify Smokey’s place as one of his favorite writers. It Won’t Be Long, All I’ve Got To Do, Not A Second Time and This Boy all illustrate his deep affection for the music of the Motown great. His cover of You Really Got A Hold On Me encompasses everything that a good cover song should. Even Smokey himself loved it. “When they recorded that, it was one of the most flattering things that ever happened to me. I listened to it over and over again, not to criticize it but to enjoy it.” (Turner, p. 35) Astonishingly, You Really Got A Hold On Me would be the only Miracles song that The Beatles ever covered, live in concert, on the BBC radio programs or in the studio. The Beatles, however, did record two other Motown songs for With The Beatles with Lennon tackling the lead vocals on both Money and Please Mister Postman. Berry Gordy, founder of Tamla/ Motown, was apparently more enlightened than the heads of Capitol records and realized the importance of having the biggest recording act in the U.K. covering songs featured on his label. So, he gave The Beatles a reduced rate for all songs originally recorded by artists on his roster. Smokey admired The Beatles for more than just their music; he admired their character and integrity. “Well, you know one of things that I really loved about The Beatles… they were the first white artists that I had heard, who came right out and said, ‘We grew up and were very influenced by black music and by Motown.’ I loved them for that and I thought it was so wonderful they would say it.” (Robinson, interview with Paul Du Noyer, 2009)”
Robustelli, Anthony (2014-02-07). I Want To Tell You – The Definitive Guide To The Music Of The Beatles Volume 1:1962/1963 (Kindle Locations 5447-5467). . Kindle Edition.
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