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Motown M 1066 (B), September 1964
B-side of Baby Love
(Written by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Edward Holland Jr.)
Stateside SS 350 (B), October 1964
B-side of Baby Love
(Released in the UK under license through EMI / Stateside Records)
Further evidence of just how confusing it must have been to be around Hitsville in the autumn of 1964. The Supremes had toiled in relative obscurity for three years as the runts of the Motown litter before becoming, almost overnight, the hottest ticket in town.
The girls’ second LP, Where Did Our Love Go, captures the group right in the middle of this transition. Most of the album was recorded after they got assigned to the crack Holland-Dozier-Holland team, but before they hit it big, and so it’s replete with leftfield ideas and a kind of try-anything spirit, honing skills and juggling identities in the chase for that breakthrough.
Ask Any Girl, the dramatic closing track of the album, is a great example of this. In contrast to the precise pop perfection of the A-side, Baby Love, here we get something like a mix of operetta overture and demented bossa nova flamenco. It’s both completely representative of the “new” Supremes sound, and at the same time a relic of a time being left behind.
It feels strange to be dissecting this as a standalone 45 side, rather than the string-laden finale and coda for the Where Did Our Love Go album. It was actually re-used, for some reason, as the opener for the Supremes’ next “proper” LP, More Hits By The Supremes, neatly underlining how it forms a bridge between two eras. On Where Did Our Love Go, it closes out a side full of slow and midtempo numbers, all solid enough but slightly alien in feel, most of which we’ve already met here on Motown Junkies – I’m Giving You Your Freedom, A Breath Taking Guy, He Means The World To Me, Standing On The Crossroads Of Love. On More Hits By The Supremes, Ask Any Girl goes straight into the driving physical thump and clatter of track two, Nothing But Heartaches. It doesn’t feel out of place in either context, which I suppose illustrates the transitional nature of the song.
This is just about teetering on the edge of greatness. It’s roughly two thirds killer, one third ungainly plod, but it’s impossible to separate the good and the bad. The girls are almost, almost the group America would come to know and love, the harmonies in places are exquisite, and at times, it soars right into the realm of the best Supremes material.
At others, though, it falls flat; under the skin, it’s not a great song, and after a huge, dramatic orchestral intro (where Diana sounds fantastic), the rest of the tune is driven by the string section more than anything else. Meanwhile, the lyric is both messy and difficult, the haphazard scansion reminiscent of Holland-Dozier-Holland’s earlier efforts, Diana Ross audibly struggling to shoehorn all the required syllables into their awkward allocated spaces. I don’t know if there is a graceful and well-packaged way to stretch the word “neglectfully”, say, into seven syllables, but the way it’s done here isn’t it.
According to the liner notes to The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 4, this was originally earmarked for Kim Weston, which might explain the “bigger” sound (for want of a better word) in play here. It’s clearly outside Diana’s range, but she gamely gives it a good go anyway, and her much higher, thinner voice serves her exceptionally well right from the start, Ross absolutely nailing the song’s very first line – Being hurt by the ONE you love…
But the gods of music give with one hand and take away with the other. That same quality in her voice which makes the intro so remarkable also gives the verses an unintended, shrill kind of fragility that both contrasts and clashes with the banging, non-stop 4/4 tambourine beat that dominates the record. I can’t shake the feeling that this is unintentional, that – unlike the A-side – the clash of form and meaning has no significance and this was meant to sound, well, “bigger” (again) than it already does.
So, does that mean it’s not very good, then? Heavens, no, it’s definitely good. There’s so much to admire once you get over the sloppiness that holds the record back – that intro, the sheer rush of hearing the Supremes drenched in a lavish string-laden production, that incessant 4/4 beat that you can’t help but dance to, the first appearance of the cooing backing vocals just as Diana hits the all in “Who’s often left alone, all by herself”, the chord change on the second line in each verse… all special stuff. It’s just all tied up inextricably with the fiddly, inflexible main vocal line and the occasional ungainly moment of total bombast, and so I can’t separate it out. A shame, as this could have been a great pop song with a bit more work on everybody’s part.
We’ll never hear the Supremes do anything like this again here on Motown Junkies – they’ll never have the time or the freedom, instead hemmed onto a different path by their big break. But it’s a gas alright, alternately charming and thrilling even as its faltering structure trips over its own feet.
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!)
COVERWATCH
Motown Junkies has reviewed other Motown versions of this song:
- Tony Martin (December 1965)
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 Supremes? Click for more.)
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| The Supremes “Baby Love” |
Mary Wells “Whisper You Love Me Boy” |
DISCOVERING MOTOWN |
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Motown Junkies 
Because a Philadelphia artist named Nella Dodds had rushed out a cover version, there was a scant 41 days between the 45s of “Baby Love” and “Come See About Me,” and I don’t know anyone who’s heard the Dodds cover, ever. “Baby Love,” in fact, was still a couple of days away from leaping 6-to-1 for a four week stay at the top Billboard. It was nice to have them, but it also had the effect of leaving both feeling somewhat past peak by even Christmas. Thus, where I was in Philadelphia, WIBG was giving generous spin in January to “Ask Any Girl,” probably and rightly sensing now-insatiable Supremes fans wanted to hear something while we waited for Motown 1074.
“Ask Any Girl” can never bellyache that Motown treated it shabbily. (I wish “It’s All Your Fault” had been served so well.) It’s on Where Did Our Love Go, More Hits By The Supremes, the essential and first, blue cover Greatest Hits, the 1974 Anthology, and many a repackaged compilation in the decades since. Though it didn’t chart independently on Billboard Pop, Motown has always treated the song as a hit, and it deserves it. It’s a terrific record.
Let’s look again over the “Golden Era” (1964-1967), and in order: “He Means The World To Me,” “Ask Any Girl,” “Always In My Heart,” “I’m In Love Again, “Whisper You Love Me Boy,” “He Holds His Own,” “Who Could Ever Doubt My Love,” “Everything Is Good About You,” “He’s All I Got,” “Put Yourself In My Place,” “Remove This Doubt,” “There’s No Stopping Us Now,” “All I Know About You,” “Going Down For The Third Time,” and “I Guess I’ll Always Love You.” (Yes, I skipped the Christmas single.)
“All I Know About You,” might be a possible candidate, but otherwise, what Supremes b-side is a failure or not worth listening to today? My personal favorite is a dead heat tie between “Whisper You Love Me Boy” and “Everything Is Good About You,” but I also think their version of “I Guess I’ll Always Love You” trumps even the Isley’s original. Somebody inside Motown remained faithfully mindful that great b-sides make 45s jump out of record store shelves too, and “Ask Any Girl” assists “Baby Love” emphatically.
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Not to come across all cryptic, but I won’t tell you all yet what my favourite Supremes B-side is. However, it’s one of my favourite of all Supremes records, and (in answer to an earlier question!), it’ll be getting a ten along with its topside, the second of two such instances in the entire Motown catalogue (the first being Mary Wells’ My Guy/Oh Little Boy). Ooh, mysterious. 😉
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Can’t wait to see what it is! = )
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Nella Dodds’ version of the song, which is not bad at all, is readily available on YouTube.
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Sorry, my previous comment was in response to Dave L’s above.
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My favorite Supremes B side is “Who Could Ever Doubt My Love” flip side of “I Hear A Symphony”
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Yes, “Who Could Ever Doubt My Love”, “Everything Is Good About You” B side of ” My World Is Empty Without You ” and “Ask Any Girl” are my favorite flip sides, in that order.
On “Ask Any Girl”, I’ve always wondered on the rythym track, what is making the sound I can best desribe as a slapping razor strap..It’s a great effect whatever it is, does anyone know the backstory on it?
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Dave, I would say “Whisper You Love Me” wins your tie against everything is good about you. = )
Question: Are you saying that the Philly singer covered “Baby Love” or “Ask Any Girl?”
Another question: Do you know all those B-sides you listed from memory? (lol).
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The philly singer did a cover of “Come See About Me” which is why Berry sent out the Supremes version so quickly on the heels of “Baby Love.”
As for the second question, it’s 8 minutes to 4 in the morning, my records sure are far from my computer desk asleep in their boxes, so let me answer you this way about that memory question:
1060, 1066, 1068, 1074, 1075, 1080, 1083, 1089, 1094, 1097, 1101, 1103, 1107, 1111, 1116.
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A-MAZ-ING! (LOL)
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Dave L – so glad to see Going Down for the Third Time in that list! I’m pretty sure it was never a single, but it’s one of my all-time favorite Supremes song!
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Agree! “Going Down For the Third Time” is a great song. Love the “Save me’s” in the background. It’s such a HDH song = )
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Oh, it was a single: on the backside of “Reflections,” Motown 1111
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That’s wonderful – I can’t wait to hear what Nixon has to say about it!
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I don’t remember hearing The Nella Dodds cover version on the radio. I bought the record for the song on the flip side.
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Noted for the record too, by the time the Where Did Our Love Go LP was in stores at the top of September, HDH’s “Penny Pincher,” “Send Me No Flowers,” “Remove This Doubt,” as well as Smokey’s “OooWee Baby” were all finished too. “Doubt” got out in reasonably good time by ’66, but none of the other three would have made shabby b-sides either, and stayed out of our grasp until 1986!
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I told myself I wasn’t going to visit the blog today. Instead I would work on editing my senior thesis, but when I checked my email and saw that Mr. Nixon had posted a new review I smiled. When I saw it was The Supremes I became ELATED and clicked on the link. (It’s sooo hard to fight temptation lol).
I’ve always called “Ask Any Girl” the “Almost Song.” This song was almost as brilliant as “Where Did Our Love Go” and “Baby Love.” Start with that intro. Dramatic, yes, but this song doesn’t get soapy. Instead it becomes a beautiful sophisticated teenage drama. My favorite part of the song is when Diana sings, “Don’t take my word, ask any girl” The way she sings it is…. brilliant. Already in 1964, the classic Ross stylings were terrific! In my opinion Miss Ross needed one more take and this song just possibly would have graduated to the brilliant level.
Enough with the could have been talk. Let me get back to what this song is. Like I said before this “Almost Song” starts with a great intro. The cha cha rhythm is lovely. I could dance to it all day! Flo & Mary are great as usual in the back & Diana’s lead is crisp & clear.This song is also age appropriate for the girls, who were still barely 20 here.
IMO the Where Did Our Love Go? album is a great reference point to demonstrate the growth & experimentation that the Supremes went through. On the album you will find the brilliant, good, bad, and terrible. Yet, the terrible is forgiven when you realize the effort that the girls put into those performances. That is why I will forever be a fan of Miss Ross. Like Mr. Nixon mentioned above, this song was somewhat too “big” for her, but I feel that she rose to the occasion and did a good job.
Again, I didn’t expect for my reply to be this long, but when the subject is the Supremes I can become quite talkative (lol). Funny, I almost wished that this song would have been just a little better & a huge hit. But why? As we all know these ladies would not need help in that department for a while = )
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Then there’s that legal snafu associated with “Ask Any Girl”:
http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=4937
I’ve been listening to both songs since before I was 12, and I honestly have never heard “Ask Any Girl” ‘inside’ Len Barry’s “1-2-3.” On a jury, I might have been a lone holdout.
Now, if we were talking about comparing “In My Lonely Room” to Candy & the Kisses’ “The 81,” my conscience might have led me in another direction.
Then, more recently in the summer of 1988, I flipped my lid over Steve Winwood’s “Roll With It.” White guy or not, I thought it was the best black record I heard that year. With so many old Motown stars gone quiet, and most black music moving toward rap, “Roll With It” was an oasis of throwback. I still love it.
Turns out however, HDH also thought it sounded a little too music themselves like ‘old times’…
http://tinyurl.com/7a7lsaj
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The first time I heard “1-2-3” I told my friend that it sounded like “Ask Any Girl”, and that was well before anyone had any inkling of the lawsuit.
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Although I’ve heard Baby Love 1000+ times (and 1-2-3 is familiar to me), I had never heard Ask Any Girl until today. The first thing that struck me (before reading the review or this comment about the 1-2-3 lawsuit) was the similarity of inspiration to Bacharach’s (also from 1964) “There’s Always Something There to Remind Me” (“I walk along the city streets you used to walk along with me” has the same basic melodic/harmonic hook flavor – you can sing one over the other if you keep jumping back and forth between half time and double time).
I also find it fascinating that I hadn’t ever heard this song! It’s often said that Motown’s marketing strategy was to “market black music to white kids”. I was the target – a dumb, sheltered, 8-year old white kid in the LA suburbs who listened to AM radio and spent as much of his parents’ money as he could on records. I was nuts for most of the Motown that filtered through the radio waves to me but oblivious to the idea that it was in any way a different type of product or marketing or what the singers looked like – I noticed the color of the label but not the writing on it (I can’t listen to Heatwave without seeing that spinning purple label). Boy was I clueless … but in retrospect I had pretty good taste! In ANY case, although I loved it, I never bought Baby Love – probably because I didn’t need to – it was playing everywhere all the time.
Anyway, I like Ask Any Girl a lot so far.
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It came as a relief when I bought “Baby Love” because to me the record was so much stronger than “Where Did Our Love Go”. But then I turned it over, began to play “Ask Any Girl”, and was hooked right from the slow “Being hurt by the one you love” introduction. Diana Ross’s vocals suit the song perfectly, with any fragility in her voice or problems with the scansion just serving to reinforce her vulnerability and to make her the object of our sympathy.
Make no mistake; this track is a masterpiece and no other record company in the world would have left it hidden away on the b-side. Transcending Motown, this is the perfect girl-group record, enthralling from the very first “la-la-la” of the backing vocalists. It really IS a great song, with a melody so strong that it inspired Len Barry’s “1-2-3”. And the string arrangement sounds like it’s the music of the spheres.
If the song had been released as an a-side, I have no doubt that it would have been a great success, and the Motown Sound might even have evolved slightly differently as a result with more of an emphasis towards soulful strings. I can envisage an alternate world with hits for Kim Weston’s “Don’t Compare Me With Her”, the Temptations’ “Just One Last Look”, and Brenda Holloway’s original version of “Who Could Ever Doubt My Love”.
Whenever I play “Ask Any Girl”, once is never enough. The string coda stays in the mind long after the record has finished, together with the memory of the backing vocalists on the fadeout; and leaves me wanting it to go on forever.
The gulf of my appreciation between this and “Baby Love” on the other side is so great that I had to downgrade “Baby Love” to 9/10. To this day, “Ask Any Girl” remains by far my favourite Diana Ross-led Supremes track. I rate it 10/10 (and then some).
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Nice mini review. My favorite line is “Diana Ross’s vocals suit the song perfectly, with any fragility in her voice or problems with the scansion just serving to reinforce her vulnerability and to make her the object of our sympathy.” Reading that line was a delight to my eyes (lol).
So this is your favorite Supreme song???
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Yes, this is my favourite Supremes’ song.
Timing is everything. Remember when I first heard this as a new record it sounded stylistically different from anything else that was current. I hadn’t yet heard “Stop In the Name of Love”, I hadn’t heard “You Can’t Hurry Love”, I hadn’t heard “You Keep Me Hanging On”. If my first introduction to it had been twenty years later on a Supremes’ anthology, it’s possible that it might not have stood out enough to make the same impression on me.
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Wow! I would have never guessed in a million years that this was it. The story for why you love it is exactly why I love this blog. Historical thoughts, opinions and facts are all here. Like I’ve said before I learn so much here = )
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To Nixon, Dave L. 144man, Demicia, I’am really enjoying the Reviews and the Mini Reviews..Wow!! there are so many B sides that are good or great not to mention some of the non hit cuts from Motown Lps, it’s excitedly overwhelming!!
B sides that still stand out in my mind:
“I Want You ‘Round” Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston
“Where Did You Go”, “Just As Long As You Need Me” Four Tops
“Choosey Beggar” ” You Must Be Love” Smokey Robinson and the Miracles
“You’ve Been A Long Time Coming” Marvin Gaye
“Don”t Look Back” The Temptations
“There’s No Love Left” The Isley Brothers
There are so many more..
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Agree! Thanx for the shoutout (lol).
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Berry Gordy said that records were deliberately not marked with an “A” or “B” so that DJs and buyers would play both sides.
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True – but in the case of the Supremes, or other big-ticket Motown acts granted the luxury of picture sleeves, the distinction was made quite clear for the buyer by printing the title of the nominal A-side in huge letters (as above!)
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It used to amaze me how many times I would ask friends what the B-side of a record that they had bought was like, and they would tell me that they had never played it. I just couldn’t understand why they would do that.
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Yes, that’s just madness. But then it’s quite widespread – I knew people like that in school, too, and even today, I have friends who buy albums on iTunes (or more often emusic!) and haven’t listened to anything past track 4 even a few weeks later. What if the B-side is the best thing you’ve ever heard? And especially with Motown, with the kind of quality we’re often talking about… Madness.
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Hey you guys have to remember everyone doesn’t have that exploration spirit like you all do (lol). = )
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There were many LP cuts that were never pressed on 45, and that I felt were better than that artist or group’s biggest hit. “Egyptian Love” by The Metros is a n example, despite “Sweetest One” being a fantastic recording (of course, moist of the musicians on those cuts were Funk Brothers and other Motown session players. “He Don’t Care About Me” , by The Miracles also comes to mind.
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Wow! Just heard this track (Egyptian Love). It’s great. Never heard it before. Nor had I heard The Sweetest One. Thought you were referring to a Motown track but it’s on RCA. RCA wasn’t known for its soul in the mid 1960s (esp after Sam Cooke died). I presume the Joe Hunter listed as a producer isn’t the same as Ivy Jo Hunter? Anyway, thanks for mentioning this.
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Even the most hardcore Beatles fans tend to be unfamiliar with songs like “I’ll Get You” and “Yes It Is.”
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I’m only a casual Beatles fan, yet I know most of their B-sides. My favourite is “P.S. I Love You”.
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Smart ploy!
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What about “Where Is That Girl” by The Spinners or “I’ll Come Running” by Carolyn Crawford and “Good-Bye Cruel Love” by Linda Griner?
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“Where Is That Girl” is most definitely a 10/10.
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One of my all-time favoites is “Baby I’ve Got It” by Jimmy Ruffin (1966).
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I wonder what was tougher for Ross: stretching “neglectfully” over seven syllables, or pushing out, as one runalong sentence, “we’re closer together more now than ever but now that we’ve found love we’ve got to hold on love there’s! … no stopping us now? The woman earned her pay.
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Agree! (LOL)
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“There’s No Stopping Us Now”, B side of “Love Is Here And Now You’re Gone”, that reminds me of the “squeek of the reed” on the saxophone bridge in “No Stopping Us”, That always made me cringe when I heard it (lol)
Another Supremes favorite from the ” I Hear A Symphony” album, “Any Girl In Love”
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II had to make a trip in my car today and listened to “Ask Any Girl” from “Where Did Our Love Go” which has the longer music fade that the cut “Ask Any Girl” on the ‘More Hits By The Supremes has..If I recall, the single version also has the longer fade..and once again, does anyone know what that effect is on this song, that sounds like a razor strap on the rythym track?..I’ve always wondered! Thanks.
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I’m late to this discussion, and it’s been fun to see everyone weigh in on what is an amazing and, at the same time, confounding record. When I first heard it, I thought, “Wow! Motown is relegating this great song to the B-side?!” That incredible instrumental “pow” that follows Diana’s languid intro still sends shivers down my spine. Yet it became quickly obvious to me that, as great as this song is, it was “transitional,” as Nixon says — a few steps behind the new direction being forged by H-D-H on their A-sides. Still, it deserves far more than a “6” (I’d give it an 8).
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LOL, LOL, LOL @ “a mix of operetta overture and demented bossa nova flamenco”!
For me, the mix works perfectly.
Cha cha cha!
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I always thought it was a track cut a year or two before and stuck on the albums. It was just so out of step with where they going stylistically at the time. Oveer time that song just grew on me but at first i hated it.
@Dave L: i not only heard the Nella Dodd version of “Come See About Me” i purchased the 45 myself. I still happen to have it, too. A real close copy of hte tune, it eventually got clobbered when the Supremes original became available on 45.
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