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Gordy G 7032 (A), April 1964
b/w The Girl’s Alright With me
(Written by Smokey Robinson)
Stateside SS 319 (A), July 1964
b/w The Girl’s Alright With me
(Released in the UK under license through Stateside Records)
A stark illustration of how fast things were moving at Motown during the glorious spring of 1964, I’ll Be In Trouble is also a cautionary tale about what happens if you sit still while everyone around you keeps moving forward.
Only three months had passed since the Temptations’ big breakthrough single, The Way You Do The Things You Do, had been released, and yet where that one had been a giant step for both Motown and the group in terms of quality and pop craft, this likeable but slight follow-up has a whiff of stagnation about it.
It’s not the exact same song as The Way You Do The Things You Do – it’s just very similar, and definitely not as good.
The public saw through it, the record stalling outside the pop Top 30 and the R&B Top 20. Strangely, you get the feeling everyone involved knew it, too. Smokey Robinson, who wrote and produced both singles, had come to specialise in penning tunes and lyrics that suited his vocalists’ voices, and he’d also become a dab hand at doing vocal charts for the Tempts that unlocked the group’s amazing harmonies, something which had eluded most of the group’s producers over two long, lean, hitless years. Yet this one sounds like a step backwards; everything about this record is slightly off in some way, right from the start. The opening lines, taken by the whole group at the start of each line and leaving Eddie Kendricks to finish solo –
ALL: If you decide to make me blue…
EDDIE: …I’ll be in trouble!
ALL: If you decide to be untrue…
EDDIE: …I’ll be in trouble!
– are an uncomfortable callback to the slightly raw, slightly awkward harmonies of earlier, pre-stardom Temptations cuts like Slow Down Heart or The Further You Look, The Less You See – which is to say they’re good, but not as good as we’ve now heard this group sound.
Matters aren’t helped by Eddie’s very audible difficulties with the tune. Kendricks’ high falsetto was both an asset and a burden for any canny producer; he was able to hit notes no other male Motown vocalist could manage, but he also needed careful stage-management lest he go swooping off above the stave in an uncontrolled shriek. A potent force, if you could only control it. Smokey seemed to have mastered The Eddie Question on The Way You Do The Things You Do, but here he seems to be struggling to get the right performance out of the Thin Man, and so (according to Otis Williams in the liner notes to The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 4) he resorts to the old Motown trick of deliberately pitching a track outside a vocalist’s natural range.
But Smokey should have known the one vocalist you never try that shit with is Eddie Kendricks, considering Robinson was all too aware what might happen. The gamble didn’t blow up in Smokey’s face, but nor did it pay off; Otis describes the resulting performance as “sounding a little squeaky”, which is about right – it’s not terrible, Eddie has matured as a vocalist over these last few months, but it’s a lead vocal that sails really close to the wind in terms of keeping it together.
That’s the main feeling I get from listening to this, actually – how it all sounds so close to collapsing in on itself, how you half-expect to hear Smokey’s voice at any point saying “Okay, cut, cut, let’s try another one, guys”. That’s not necessarily a bad thing – there’s a kind of nervous energy about this that suffuses the record, but it’s the adrenaline of not quite balancing properly on a tightrope, rather than the orgasmic sugar rush of the best Motown hits. The slightly shambolic aura that surrounds the track – the sound of a lack of preparation masked by sheer force of will – extends even to the band, the guitar in the opening bars sounding slightly detuned, almost intoxicated.
To the great credit of both Smokey and the Temptations, they contrive to carve something out of the shambles. The tune is a thinly-veiled rewrite of The Way You Do The Things You Do, reprising most of the best bits from that record but in the wrong order and with much less charm, but there’s no denying it’s still catchy. The middle eight, a vocal duel which sounds like it came from a white rock/pop song from two years later, is an extraordinary new ingredient and the second best bit of the record:
(bom bom bom!)
I’ll do everything I can to make you stay
Keep you by my side
(By my side, baby!)
‘Cos I love you in such a way
(That… [IMPOSSIBLY DEEP MELVIN FRANKLIN BASS GROWL])
(if anyone knows what Blue is actually singing there, do let me know)
That bit always raises a smile, but the best bit of the record comes just short of the two-minute mark, with a rousing horn break and a riveting sax solo, where the band suddenly tighten everything up and lock into their groove. It doesn’t last, but it’s all kinds of fun while it’s there.
So, all in all, despite some rough edges there’s plenty to like and enjoy here – it just doesn’t feel like the next step for this group, or indeed like any kind of step from The Way You Do The Things You Do at all. And this was a bad time to be resting on your laurels; Martha and the Vandellas had already found that repeating the same trick brought diminishing returns, but doing it while the rest of the Tempts’ labelmates were progressing at such incredible speed was the height of folly. They couldn’t do this trick a third time.
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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The Temptations “The Girl’s Alright With Me” |
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That’s fair. I’ve never left this out of any homemade cassette of Tempts hits, but it’s no landmark like “Things” and “My Girl.” But, happily, we’re now at the point where every a- and b-side of any Temps single -for some years to come- is going to be very interesting, including this one. Both sides of Gordy 7032 would end up on the first, 1966 Greatest Hits, and deserved to.
I’ve never fully deciphered that solo line of Melvin’s either but I think it’s something about ignoring or setting aside his pride.
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About Melvin Franklin’s “solo line” from ‘I’ll Be In Trouble’, I believe it’s – “I Forget All About My Pride”. I do agree with the review of the song; it’s not a bad song but it’s a holding action after “The Way You Do The Things Yo Do”.
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I’m pretty sure Melvin’s line is ‘I forget all about my pride’ too.
I like it as a companion piece to ‘The Way You Do the Things You Do,’ because the harmonic flavor is bit different. ‘Things’ is almost all diatonic (major scale) with a blues chord structure. ‘Trouble’ uses the same structure but has more dominant sevenths and blue notes. It sounds less happy and more sassy. I’d give it 6.5 or 7.
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Slight variant: ‘I’m forgetful about my pride…’ That’s what I always heard. Anyway,
it’s the highlight of the song – but I bounce happily along with it, and would give it at least a 7. And if it were anyone but the Temptations (with those impossibly high standards) it would surely rate an 8. But then you’d have to give Since I Lost My Baby and I’m Losin’ You and Get Ready each a 15, at least….I also LOVE the backup singing ‘… be in so much trouble…’ – I find it deliciously and irresistibly funky.
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It must be “I forget all about my pride” – that’s what Wanda sings in the version on “The Return of the Marvelettes”.
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Would first like to say what a great site this is and many thanks for your hard work and dedication in providing it!
Re the comparison between “The Way You Do The Things You Do” and “I’ll Be In Trouble”, my vote goes to the latter. They are both great records and guaranteed to fill the disco floors. The vocals and rhythm on both are excellent. And Eddie Willis’s clean guitar intro on “The Way” is a classic. Yet for me the key difference is in the harmonies. “The Way” is basically a three chord pop tune played flawlessly in the Motown style. Whereas on “Trouble” the Funks are leaning much harder on their jazz background – the chords are richer – that first guitar chord is a 9th for example and the 7th chords are occasionally fleshed out with what the Funks would call “added color tones” like sharp 5ths and sharp 9ths. Behind the sax solo break, the other horns fatten the 7th chords up into 13ths. And the vocal harmonies seem to fall right in with all of this.
I guess it’s because I love Jazz as well as Soul and R & B that I like “I’ll Be In Trouble” even more than I like “The Way You Do THe Things You Do”.
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Thanks Guy, I appreciate it.
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Now here is a case where another person’s viewpoint can totally blow the doors off your own long- held views of a song. I’ve always enjoyed this record but felt it was a slightly diminished Motown Copy Cat Formula follow up. Now, I’m reading your fantastically insightful observations and I’m rethinking the song.
I love music, play it, sing it, but couldn’t ever tell you anything about 7ths and 13ths and inversions; so when someone tells me the all the workings of what the horns are doing, what the guitars are playing and why, its mesmerizing to me. And to place it in terms of The Funk Brothers playing closer to their Jazz roots than R&B/Pop is another Aha moment.
So now I’m viewing this song as Smokey not just trying to clone a hit but trying to expand the parameters to hopefully create something familiar but also new and fresh. Sometimes it works and sometimes not so much, but I swear, you have me excited to listen to “I’ll Be In Trouble” as if I’ll be hearing it for the first time.
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I think its the minor keys that Eddie had difficulties with. Either way, this may have started life as the a-side, house parties flipped the disc for “The Girl’s Alright With Me”—the superior side.
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I’ve always liked “The Girl’s Alright With Me” better. “I’ll Be In Trouble” is good, but has no real hooks. It’s a fairly boring song. I think a “6” rating is fair. I’d have given it “6.5”.
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It took me awhile to figure it out, but I finally realized why I tend to award a couple or three more points to the score of many of the songs in this massive catalogue than Nixon does. So what goes through my mind in the determination of a song’s grade? First there is my set of standards of excellence that I put in play. Next there’s Nixon’s expert commentary to be considered. And finally, and this is what was, up to now, way in the back of my mind: my contrasting these songs of the ’60s with the crap that passes for R&B music today. With a few exceptions, these Motown gems occupied a level superiority over today’s (please add expletive here) so high as to preclude me from even listening to modern R&B records. So, whereas Nixon draws comparisons of songs being reviewed to others of the same era and awards a portion of his final mark based on that criteria, I tend to think that a song he gave a “5” to is SO MUCH better than anything I’ve heard in decades. What a GOLDEN AGE it was, and I’m so glad I was listening to these records the first time around, even if it means turning 70 in 3 days.
And that’s why I give today’s song an “8.” No trouble awarding that score.
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I know verily from whence you speak. I stopped listening to the radio regularly in late 1966, and altogether, in late 1969. And I’ve bought only a handful or records recorded in the ’70s (and virtually all of those are from 1970-72), after having amassed 38,000 45s and 4,000 LPs from the 1940s-1960s. And 95% of those 50 or so 1970s records I bought are Motown records. I own 2 records recorded and released after 1972 (and one is a Motown clone (“Right Back Where We Started From”), the other is a Philadelphia Sound, semi Motown clone (I’m Doin’ Fine Now” by New York City).
I haven’t heard anything I’ve liked completely, since 1974, and that includes recording sessions on which I’ve worked.
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I agree with your general grading level that’s higher than Mr. Nixon’s, because, to me, the whole gamut of Motown recordings was significantly better than the average of, and indeed, most of what else was being released at the time. I award a 5 to average recordings, 7 to average good recordings, 8 to very good, 9 to excellent, and 10 to only the “perfect” ones. As a result, most of Motown’s non-novelty and non-C&W recordings get ratings of 7-10 from me, with 7 being a “run-of-the-mill” Motown recording – as opposed to the 5, average recording for all released recordings.
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There are several Philadelphia International songs from the ’70s that could hold their own with the best from Motown. Four of my favorites are Teddy Pendergrass’ “When Somebody Loves You Back” whose orchestral arrangement truly epitomizes the sound of that company as much as the arrangement in Eddie Floyd’s “Raise Your Hand” is representative of the Stax sound. Then there’s the double sider by Billy Paul: “Let’s Make A Baby” backed by the even better “Got My Head On Straight.” For anyone who was down and out and is now undertaking a recovery, the latter song is your anthem. Finally, the song that critics love to hate, but I just plain love it: “Show Me How To Dance” by Archie Bell and the Drells. Give them a Google, and see what you think.
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I never especially noticed this song when listening to Tempts’ albums, but I’ve just listened to it on Complete Motown Singles, which means in a certain way in its production context, and I said to myself : it really showcases how awesome those singers were. Very elegant, and lots of finger snapping and foot stamping. Why not more than 6/10 finally ?
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Because it’s fairly routine for Motown. Compared with ALL songs pressed onto vinyl and Styrene, it’s an “8”. Compared to just Motown songs, it’s a “6”.
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