Tags
Tamla T 54094 (B), March 1964
B-side of Every Little Bit Hurts
(Written by Brenda Holloway)
Stateside SS 307 (B), June 1964
B-side of Every Little Bit Hurts
(Released in the UK under license through Stateside Records)
For the longest time, I had somehow got it into my head that this B-side – a slow-paced original number written by Brenda herself – was a cover, an adaptation of Land of a Thousand Dances. It isn’t, obviously.
In fact, listening to it now, it’s a very curious thing indeed. Cut in Los Angeles like the A-side Every Little Bit Hurts, this is another contemplative waltz, another showcase for Brenda’s powerful voice, but it’s weird and dreamlike rather than emotionally fraught. Mandolin-like guitars, brushed drums and an ever-so-slightly out of tune piano, all drenched in liberal amounts of echo, layered around Brenda’s haunting tune, a minor-key dirge that lets her alternately scream and coo… it’s all very strange, and really not what you’d expect a song called Land Of A Thousand Boys to sound like.
The explanation for the teenybopper title comes in the first verse, which also sets the lyrical tone for the whole song:
This is the land of a thousand boys
Only for lonely girls, yeah
You can take a chance
On a new romance
This is waiting for you…
It’s a song about how there’s someone out there for everyone, and so there’s no need to be jealous of what other girls have got – yours is waiting for you, and all you have to do is go out and find him. It’s got a stock girl group title because it’s a stock girl group trope – I mean, you could easily imagine someone taking that basic premise and writing a sassy, snappy uptempo dancer around it (and indeed Motown would go on to do exactly that a little later on). But this is reflective and filled with wonder, rather than hooks and pep; if it’s not a classic, being more about the mood than anything else, it’s still beguiling enough to make you sit up and take notice.
Brenda’s on fine form again vocally – though she’s a bit more strident and screechy in the loud sections (the third “This is WAITING!” is particularly uncomfortable, her loud “YEAH!”s causing some microphone distortion), she also channels Mary Wells highly effectively in the throaty passages (It will be a love you can count on!) – and she’s absolutely remarkable in the quiet, cooing bits.
This is especially true of the wordless Ah-ah-ahs that close out the song, which are something quite, quite different from anything Motown had really attempted before. (The closest analogue would be some of the early Miracles’ more sedate, dreamy numbers – Depend On Me, say, or I Can’t Believe – but it’s better than either of those, conjuring up the kind of strange, floating sonic dreamscape Smokey might have been aiming for on those Miracles records but never achieved.)
It’s a pity Brenda didn’t get to cut more of her own material at Motown; this one marks her out as a songwriter with a very different sense of tune and atmosphere than any of her labelmates save for Smokey Robinson, and it would have been very interesting to see what she might have come up with given more opportunities like this. Of course, with the A-side riding high in the charts, Motown didn’t see her future as being on the technical side of the glass; she was going to be a big star, and there wouldn’t necessarily be time for her to sit down and write too many more songs.
A shame, though, because while I wouldn’t swap her later records for anything, it would still have been nice to hear more like this.
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 Brenda Holloway? Click for more.)
 |
 |
| Brenda Holloway “Every Little Bit Hurts” |
Howard Crockett “Bringing In The Gold” |
DISCOVERING MOTOWN |
|---|
Like the blog? Listen to our radio show! |
| Motown Junkies presents the finest Motown cuts, big hits and hard to find classics. Listen to all past episodes here. |
Motown Junkies 
In the 60s, I safely had my copy of “Every Little Bit Hurts” on volume 3 of the 16 Big Hits (Motown 624) collection, and didn’t actually get a Tamla 54094 single until January of 1975, so I never heard this till I was nearly 21. (When Motown’s YesterYear label debuted in 1972, “Hurts” was then paired with “Just Look What You Have Done,” and “Land” went lost unless you were willing to hunt original copies.) I remember playing it over and over again. Strange a record it is, but it is also pleasingly haunting.
Because it was such a big hit, Brenda got an album of Every Little Bit Hurts quite quickly after the single. That’s good and bad, because while two subsequent b-sides would be pulled from it, there’s a lot of stray Holloway a-sides to come that wouldn’t see album release until well past the age of vinyl, and long past Motown’s Detroit years. (At least Brenda did get one album in the heyday, which is more than Kim Weston and The Velvelettes can say.)
What I find fascinating is the cover, which goes a long way in highlighting Berry Gordy’s admiration for Doris Day, and her brand of glamour. (Nixon may yet paste the album cover in here, but it’s easily Googled too.) The pose could readily have been a still from any of Day’s dramatic films. Leaning against some white, louvered folding doors, Brenda wears a form-fitting pink evening gown with formal white gloves. There’s a slit in the gown, half-way up one calf. She casts a downward, melancholy glance, lost in thought and oblivious to us.
Thank goodness Berry liked old-fashioned good taste. In just a few years, we’d get an album cover of the Mamas and the Mamas in hippie clothes, squeezed into a bathtub right next to a gaping-mouthed toilet, or the Beatles quickly-withdrawn ‘butcher’ cover of “Yesterday …and Today”.
Shudder with me, and imagine a similar trend at Motown: we might have gotten Brenda, looking like she hadn’t slept all night, in a two day-worn bathrobe with coffee stains down the front of it.
In more than one book, I’ve read Motown’s female stars chafed at the company’s paternalistic attitude, their no-nonsense chaperones, the hawk-like watchful eyes on their behavior, on stage and off. That would try the patience of any young person in the years they’re ripe for romance and adventure. But now that those women are (mostly) in their 60s, and today there are no pictures or stories to embarrass them, I suspect none regret dutifully cooperating with Berry’s vision.
đŸ™‚
LikeLike
Doh, it was SUPPOSED to have been included in the “Every Little Bit Hurts” review (written when I was still unwell), as well as here – I knew I’d forgotten something. I’ll add it in now!
LikeLike
>>In just a few years, we’d get an album cover of the Mamas and the Mamas in hippie clothes, squeezed into a bathtub right next to a gaping-mouthed toilet.<<
Well, a few years later we did get that Millie Jackson record with the toilet cover that made the M&Ps look tasteful.
LikeLike
What everyone forgets about Back To The S**t is that it’s a perfect cover for that album, though – I don’t know if they had “Parental Advisory” stickers 20-odd years ago, but that cover works so much better as a sampler, advertisement and warning of the contents. “If you find this too distasteful, you aren’t going to enjoy my record, so just keep moving”.
A lot of the “Worst album cover ever!” comments are from people who’ve obviously not listened to the record, which would have been quite controversial even if it had come in a plain brown paper sleeve; it’s a pretty full-on live cabaret comedy/variety set, Millie mingling skits like “Muffle That Fart” (which is precisely as appalling as it sounds) with sensitive, heartfelt ballads. Also, there’s a bit right near the end when she namechecks Diana Ross (look, everyone – relevance!) and starts singing “Reach Out and Touch Somebody’s Hand”, except replacing “hand” with another part of the male anatomy – I’ve often wondered if Miss Ross ever actually heard that.
LikeLike
I’ve actually heard some of Millie Jackson’s record.
Not to get too off base, there’s an entire subgenre of bawdy Southern soul (as I’m sure you know). I was going to cite Ollie Nightingale’s I’ll Drink Your Bath Water, Baby cover but figured more people were familiar with the Millie Jackson, Incidentially, the Ollie Nightingale record has some pretty good Southern soul
But to bring it all back to Brenda (where it belongs), I love the cover to her album and Land Of A Thousand Boys is a really good and underrated track.
LikeLike
That “haven’t heard it” comment wasn’t meant to be aimed at you, treborij (though I appreciate, reading it back, that it comes across that way – sorry!) I just meant that most of those “10 Worst Covers Ever!” magazine/blog pieces that include Back To The S**t! are written from a “ha ha, what the hell is this?” perspective, lumping it in with any records with weird or laughable sleeves. But I’ve always found that rather unfair – whilst Millie’s is definitely bizarre and unpleasant, it’s also a completely fair reflection/advertisement for the raucous, self-deprecating comedy and toilet humour to be found within, when most of those “Worst Sleeve Art” retrospectives act as if it was (a) unintentional, or (b) an album by Rebbie Jackson. I doubt an LP of similar material from a male comedian with a similar cover would get such treatment; people would call it scandalous, but they’d probably realise the comedian was trying to shock (or warn) the public.
Ollie’s sleeve actually provoked more of an Ewww! than Millie’s when I first saw it, but that probably says more about me than either of the artists in question.
LikeLike
Oy.
If only spell checking caught correctly spelled but misused words.
‘the Mamas and the Papas of course.
Dumb, Dave…
LikeLike
As Norman Whitfield would say: “We got another one!”
another 10/10. Delivered as a series of agonizing build-ups followed by explosive orgasms set somewhere in a misty valley, this Tamla B-side mesmerized many a guy i knew.
The tag-fade and mandolin is a nice touch as if saying this was your final release….relax.
LikeLike
Having just played the ‘Every little bit hurts’ album, for the first time in a couple of years, I suddenly remembered how captivating this rather sparsley arranged recording Is. It’s always had a rather strange slightly uneasy effect on me unlike any other recording I can think of off hand. That makes it rather unique to my ears. It has a peculiar effect on me and makes me think of a land of 1000 girls and I’m the only guy on it. Now what place that would be!!
LikeLike
What if they were a thousand nagging women?
LikeLiked by 1 person