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Mel-o-dy ME 120 (B), March 1965
B-side of You Only Pass This Way One Time
(Written by Al Klein and Bob Milsap)
Dippy, drippy, weepy, sleepy. Nothing about this plodding, hangdog B-side suggests it even came from the same group who’d turned in the turbocharged folk-skiffle psychedelia of the A-side, You Only Pass This Way One Time, which makes me even more inclined to see that one as a fluke, an accident. This, I fear, this right here is the real sound of the Hillsiders (whoever they were), the sound they were aiming for on the topside. And it’s awful.
Oh, alright, awful is a bit harsh; the backing vocals are very pretty, and it’s a sweet little tune, all told. But the lead singer, who clearly didn’t feature on the A-side (it’s a man, for a start) is a clean-cut, whitebread vocalist whose unremarkable self-conscious warbling seems determined to take us back to 1953. Meanwhile, the lyrics he’s singing – a song about how rain makes him feel lonely, so let’s hope he never comes here to Wales – are the kind of ridiculous fare I’d previously mocked the likes of the Stylers for trying to break out, a middle-aged white man’s hilariously poor attempt at sounding young and hip by occasionally (and very gingerly) dropping the “g” from words like rainin’. And yes, this is a song about rain which includes the phrase pitter-patter, so… Oh dear.
This is a load of insipid, morose toss, exactly what I’d been afraid of when cueing up the A-side; but the music gods give with one hand and take away with the other, so while my dread on the topside quickly evaporated in the face of the Hillsiders’ psychotropic church group jamboree, my expectations for this side came crashing back down when this limp little ballad struck up instead. Ah well.
It’s hard not to let my disappointment colour my view of the record on its own merits. Literally everything I liked from the A-side – the beguiling female lead vocal, the echo, the driving beat, the Theremin-like cooing and hollering, the catchy tune and its almost complete independence from the time signature of the beat – it’s all missing, and in its place, a flat little Fifties sketch so wet it would have had Bobby Breen thinking twice.
It’s not unlistenably bad; the female backing vocals get better as the song goes on, the piano is a nice touch, and (as I said) the tune is actually quite nice, as far as quiet noodling goes. But “not quite as dreadful as I thought it was going to be” isn’t a recommendation, and results in our first red mark of the year.
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 Hillsiders “You Only Pass This Way One Time” |
The Freeman Brothers “My Baby” |
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I disagree again. I like this side better than the “A” side. I don’t like either very much. But this is listenable. I ‘d much rather listen to this than “Linda Sue Dixon” by The Detroit Wheels, or even “Papa Was A Rolling Stone”. I guess I’m showing that I’m more of a child of the late ’40s and ’50s than of the ’60s. I’d give both sides of this record a “3”. But, I like this side slightly better. That’s NOT because I like MOR or “light C&W more than “Folk Music”. I like The Weavers’ better songs a lot more than this tripe. I just don’t see what you like in the “A” side of this, and don’t think THIS side is bad enough to be all that hard on the ears (offensive -as you imply).
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Thanks Robb 🙂
This whole site is based around the principle of everyone, me included, has their own highly subjective opinions on things. Call it different strokes, call it de gustibus non est disputandum, call it one man’s meat being another man’s poison, whatever – if every single person reading this site were to rank Motown sides in their preferred order (even fifty of them, never mind five hundred and sixty), I’d be surprised if any of the resulting charts matched up exactly the same. I’d also wager a healthy wad of cash that one person’s Number 1 might wind up as someone else’s Number 50.
If ever an illustration were needed of how idiosyncratic people’s tastes can be when it comes to Motown – and how seriously people shouldn’t take this project – then between my love for the A-side, and your preference of this over Papa Was A Rolling Stone, well, this Hillsiders record pretty much covers it.
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I don’t know that I’d rate it much higher, but one very interesting thing about this side is the similarity of the bass riff (the very presence of which elevates this beyond most C&W) to “It’s My Life” by the Animals (Oct. 1965) – not the opening but the part that goes “Hear what I say … I’m gonna write this sermon (or is it “ride this serpent”?)” The riffs are note-for-note identical (until the superior Animals song sequences it down a whole step).
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