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Motown M 1081 (A), July 1965
b/w Your Love Is Amazing
(Written by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Edward Holland Jr.)
Tamla Motown TMG 528 (A), August 1965
b/w Your Love Is Amazing
(Released in the UK under license through EMI/Tamla Motown)
The more I see this song being referenced by lackwits who haven’t got the joke, the more I admire Holland-Dozier-Holland’s chutzpah in giving it such a confrontational, cheeky title.
Hastily-recorded (and, more unusually, just as hastily-written) as a follow-up to the chart-topping, million-selling I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch), there’s no denying It’s The Same Old Song bears more than a passing resemblance to its predecessor. But people who ought to know better have seen it as a rare unguarded admission on the part of Motown (or HDH) of self-plaigiarism, something to be quote-mined when denigrating Motown hits for all sounding the same as each other. Even THEY admitted it! Ha ha ha ha!
In fact, It’s The Same Old Song came about because Holland-Dozier-Holland were called upon to write a brand-new single to order, something – anything – for the Tops to have in the shops in order to combat their former label Columbia’s bandwagon-jumping ploy, a cleverly-marketed re-issue of a long-forgotten flop (1960’s spirited Ain’t That Love, now remixed and sped-up to sound more like the Motown Four Tops and less like the well-travelled but luckless doo-woppers of five years before). They wrote it on the hoof, in the studio, on the day it was recorded, mixed and sent to the pressing plant. Not that you’d really know it; It’s The Same Old Song is a little muffled in places, a little jumbled and breathless, but as far as I was concerned, it didn’t feel rushed or unfinished for me until I found out it really was.
I’d argue, strongly, that – stripping away the folklore – this is actually one of Motown’s less egregious examples of soundalike sequel syndrome. It’s impossible to deny the family resemblance, but this is harder-edged than Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch, and noisier to boot: it’s taut and pacy, more in keeping with the Tops’ later banging mid-Sixties anthems like Shake Me, Wake Me… a very different feel to the rolling rhythms of I Can’t Help Myself.
Despite the various claims that the two songs are hung on the same musical skeleton (they aren’t – this one’s much further divorced from the Supremes’ Where Did Our Love Go, the obvious-in-hindsight progenitor of I Can’t Help Myself, although it does add in a ripping instrumental sax break which calls to mind the Supremes hit), or that the repeated four-note riff in this one is simply the four-note riff from the last one played backwards (it isn’t – that comes from something Brian Holland said in an interview once, as an aside, some thirty years later), this is a new song in its own right and doesn’t deserve its status as poster child for a lack of Motown creativity. It doesn’t even really to be bracketed alongside the likes of, say, Quicksand or Two Lovers or A Love She Can Count On (all great singles in their own right, incidentally) in terms of, ahem, “drawing inspiration” from what came immediately before.
The title is an intentional joke, occasioned by the increasing perception that all Holland-Dozier-Holland’s songs sounded the same, together with the ludicrously unrealistic time frame imposed on this. It’s a cheeky wink, something that HDH might have done among themselves for a bet (in the face of an accusation that all their songs sounded the same, I can absolutely see them challenging each other to write a coherent and internally-consistent song around such a phrase), but it’s certainly not – as I’ve seen argued – compelling evidence Motown were laughing in their fans’ faces while selling them six copies of the same (old) song with three notes changed.
Ha ha ha ha, but it’s the same old song, they said so themselves! Ha ha ha ha! Yes, dear.
This went top five, while the Columbia record was snuffed out having barely skimmed the lowest depths of the Hot 100. Motown had grown big, but they hadn’t grown fat; their quick reactions and whip-smart handling of their production, distribution and PR contacts allowed the upstart black-owned indie label to squash direct competition from one of the biggest record companies in the world. Point, Gordy.
I hadn’t realised it until I came to write this, but it turns out I’m rather fond of this record, actually. I’d never fallen for the hype that called this the epitome of Motown repeatedly scrabbling down the back of the sofa for new ideas, but I’d not realised just how forceful and exciting it is. Lyrically, it’s impressive given the artificial surroundings of its birth: the narrator and his girlfriend have split up, and Levi Stubbs – in an echo of Martha Reeves’ wounded narrator in the Vandellas’ magnificent Come And Get These Memories – can’t bear to listen to their old favourite record any more. It was clever then, and it’s clever now. More so, given the context; part of me really hopes this was written for a bet.
It’s got a great chorus, perhaps even more whistleable than the gentler earworm of I Can’t Help Myself; that had worked its way in through a kind of repetitive, rolling, strolling grind, whereas this one’s got an actual hook, the sort of thing you can imagine going down splendidly on nightclub dancefloors in 1975 given a bit of a disco twist; a mental image of four guys in white suits, sequins, wide collars, flares, shades, Afros, all moving in perfect time. This is nowhere near smooth enough for any of that, and yet the song (if not the recording) sounds as though it might have fallen through a wormhole from a decade in the future. More than any Tops record we’ve covered so far, this one would be great for dancing.
As always, Levi Stubbs is the Tops’ greatest asset, the pain and pleading in this one very much grist to his mill; he handles an extraordinarily well-judged lead vocal in fluid fashion, the hurry and haste of the song’s construction perhaps leading him to adopt a slightly different approach, running lines and syllables together between the lengthy pauses built into the song. It’s yet another striking example of Levi’s mastery of his craft, not just in terms of his voice – although he sounds great – but in terms of having the intelligence to pick his way through the assault course of a hastily-assembled arrangement to splendid effect, roaming around free of the tune when there’s room for him to roam, sticking to the melody line when there isn’t.
It works really well; the same can’t really be said of the backing vocals, which are strangely – if entirely understandably – simple, even sparse, for a Four Tops record, It’s The Same Old Song actually making the least use of the female house singers, the immortal Andantes, of any Tops song we’ve covered so far. The harmonies are sketched in rather than carved in stone, and the hints of more complex ideas (the excellent bit late in the song, presaging Sly Stone, where Levi and the BVs trade lines call-and-response style with “We used to dance to the music!”, is particularly good) only serve to highlight the lack of arrangements earlier in the song. It doesn’t sound completely intentional, either – in an echo of the Originals’ forthcoming We’ve Got A Way Out Love, the backing Tops’ staccato interjections (Same! Old! Song!), bark-delivered without any sustain at all, feel like they were probably meant to have been augmented by overdubs that never got done amidst the chaos.
The best thing about this, though, is the Funk Brothers’ snappy backing track; the recording’s slightly fuzzy, blurry edges are a symptom of its having been cut at speed, but the trade-off is that we get to see what a tight band the Funks have become, especially when handed a prefab Holland-Dozier-Holland 4/4 stomp. The machine-gun drum fill that opens the song, ratatatatatat, gives way to a jam par excellence, the band riffing on all the musical tropes they’d learned from all those hits not just for the Tops, but the Supremes and anyone else who was using HDH’s template.
What it all adds up to, somewhat unexpectedly, is yet another excellent single. I say “unexpectedly” because I’d been waiting for a chance to ease up on the flow of constant praise that Motown Junkies has become as we make our way through the summer of 1965, and based solely on its reputation, this seemed like that chance – but no, this one’s absolutely fine by me.
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 Four Tops “Your Love Is Amazing” |
DISCOVERING MOTOWN |
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Motown Junkies 
This is easily my favorite Four Tops song because the chorus/hook is really catchy and all the Four Tops are giving it their all. I’d give it a 10 because it’s my personal favorite but otherwise I’d agree with an 8 rating. (This is my first comment on Motown Junkies, which is really weird since I’ve been here for a year and my favorite group/song is The Temptations/Since I Lost My Baby)
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Welcome, Edin, and thank you – I hope you’re enjoying the site!
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a certain ten! in my book, it’s the tops first. it is a template for their hits with h/d/h to come, not those too, too sugary pop songs in their past. it is a long string of 10’s for the tops (including hunter & wonder’s “loving you is sweeter than ever” & the two covers done during the h/d/h strike slowdown.) the hits just keeping building on top of themselves like movements in a symphony. many cannot seem to see these as a cohesive group of songs, but they are, and should be listened to that way. once h/d/h leave it’s curtains for the tops (except for the surprise h/d/h out of order, but great “i’m in a different world”.) at least h/d/h didn’t fall out form as long as they wrote for the tops like they did with the supremes (“the happening” & “falling in and out of love”.) the great tops run begins right here!
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Hi Rhine Ruder, I tried to respond to your post but somehow it would up below. Would love your feedback. Have a great day friend!
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I don’t think any record takes me back to the summer of ’65 as instantaneously as this one. We all had it, and we all had it fast. The face-slap attention grabber of those clean drums at the start, the ‘climbing’ instrumentation and Levi at the top.
Motown had to be on top of its game to compete in this summer: the Beatles had “Help!,” the Stones had “Satisfaction,” and the Beach Boys had “California Girls.” Only excellence was being allowed in the upper tier, and Motown was in the same big leagues now. I’m so glad I wasn’t born any later than 1954, or I might have missed it.
And as we’re now finding with single after single, this one had a terrific b-side too, drawn from the group’s first album, that we wore out just as well. It was a great year to be 11. 🙂
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The melody is stronger than “I Can’t Help Myself”, so I was surprised when it didn’t reach #1 in the US. I agree that the b-side is terrific, Dave L. It was a great year to be 17 as well.
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Agree that this is a stronger and better melody than “I Can’t Help Myself”
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I actually prefer this to “I Can’t Help Myself” and would give it a 9 or 10. Its let’s-get-this-record-out-immediately urgency can be felt and heard in this disc; Levi might be lamenting the memories of his lost love but there’s also the underlying emotion of convincing record buyers to snap this one up. And the Funk Brothers have rarely sounded better–this just propels you along and never lets go! I agree with Dave; the competition was stiff in 1965 and that provided motivation for H-D-H that they might not have had in a lesser year.
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There was another consequence of Columbia’s reissue of old 1960 Four Tops recordings besides the creation of this number. Prior to this single’s release, Columbia’s custom division was amongst the gallery of pressing plants that handled Motown and subsidiary product (others were RCA Custom, American Record Pressing of Owosso, MI, Southern Plastics of Nashville, TN, and Monarch Record Mfg. of Los Angeles, CA). One way to tell a Columbia-pressed Motown 45 was the omnipresent ZTSC matrix system (indicating the lacquers were cut by Columbia’s Chicago studios that were situated within the CBS-owned WBBM-TV/AM/FM complex at 630 North McClurg Court).
In the wake of this hubbub, Columbia’s custom pressing apparatus was frozen out of the Motown loop for the next several years in terms of regular stock LP and 45 pressings; well into the late 1960’s the only Columbia-pressed Motown product were LP’s pressed for members of the label’s lucrative mail-order record club business; and in 1966, a few 45’s, during a period when Columbia Record Club, for a brief period of time, even offered singles to members (I have two such record-club 45’s pressed by Columbia – the Four Tops’ “Shake Me, Wake Me (When It’s Over)” and Stevie Wonder’s “A Place in the Sun” – all bought second-hand, of course). The Temptations’ “All I Need,” in 1967, was the first since 1965 singles to bear ZTSC numbers – and also its last; but not until late 1970 (with “The Tears of a Clown” single by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles) would Columbia again press any Motown product in significant quantities for stock (retail) as opposed to record club, but by then Columbia was no longer using its custom matrix numbering alongside Motown’s own matrix numbers for such releases.
Meanwhile, on RCA Custom’s own pressings of this hit, that “It’s The Same Old Song” was rushed, was reflected in the company’s own matrix number – S5KM-9600 (‘5’ indicated a custom job where the lacquer originated from an outside source and was furnished to RCA). The flip, “Your Love Is Amazing,” by contrast, was designated S4KM-4724.
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This song sounds like Motown to me! “You’re sweet as a honey bee” classic line that I love to hear each time. I love the song because it’s universal. Everyone probably use to have a favorite song when they were with someone, but you broke up or whatever the case is and even though it’s the exact same song you use to love it now feels and maybe even sound different since that person is gone. Agree with you Steve D. about the backing track sounding sparse, but oddly enough it works here. And the Funk Brothers kill this track! With that said this should’ve gotten 1 point more 9/10.
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Interesting you pick that line out, Damecia, as it kind of sums up the whole record, good and bad; from memory, Levi’s delivery is amazing, he does that vocal thing only he can do where he seems to be shouting from the next room while simultaneously sat two feet away.
Awesome, right? But what the hell is going on in the background (Sweeeeeeet!)? And the immediate follow-up after the pause, words piling up against each other – But like a honey bee sting you’ve gone and left my heart in pain now all that’s LEFT… – is one of the points where, having found out this was a rush job par excellence, I stroked my chin and nodded sagely, yes, of course, I see.
It’s exceptionally good, if undeniably rough around the edges. But then I don’t hand out 8s lightly, no matter what the impression given by recent weeks 🙂
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LMAO! Yes the “sweeeeeet” was provided weakly by The Tops and the words do pile up after that line. This sounds like they recorded this while touring and they only had 2 hours max to the the vocals down and they did an excellent job on such a short notice.
Yes the impression I got from the last couple of weeks was that you were growing into a softie with the points lmao….just kidding.
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Lyrical carelessness does crop up sometimes even in the best HDH songs – a particularly instance (to my ears) occurs in ‘Love is Here and Now You’re Gone’ – …’but instead of tenderness I found heartache instead..’ I don’t think Smokey (or Mickey Stevenson, or Whitfield) would have let that pass…. I probably would only have gone to a seven with this one, because it’s just too bouncy for the pain in the lyrics to be credible – and because it is, to my ears, lightyears away from the masterpieces of the ‘Reach Out I’ll Be There’ period – lovely to dance to, but expressively just a little unfocused. I admit that the authentic HDH energy is there in abundance!
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A particularly painful instance, I meant!
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“…this one’s much further divorced from the Supremes’ Where Did Our Love Go…”
It’s actually a bit *closer*, in a way. The chorus shares the Supremes’ song’s I-V-ii-V-IV chord progression, whereas “I Can’t Help Myself” goes I-V-ii-IV-V. The difference is that the chords go by twice as fast in “It’s the Same Old Song.”
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There is also a “stings like a bee” reference in “Where Did Our Love Go” (LOL!)
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Oh wow Rhine Ruder – “Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever” is one of my favorites (both the 4 Tops & Marvin Gaye’s versions). Assuming the covers you are talking about are “Walk Away Renee” & “Carpenter”. Love em both! I actually think that the 4 Tops’ version of “Renee” is better than the original. Also I like “I’m In A Different World”. Jermaine Jackson did a decent remake of “Different World” on his first solo album. Cheers! By the way, I may possibly be the only person in the known universe who really likes “In & Out of Love”. Also, I have noticed that people who do not normally care for soul music/Motown tend to like “The Happening” Hmmm!
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Oops Sorry Joe – Meant this for Rhine Ruder but you & everyone else are welcome to read as well!
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Dear Friends, Sorry for the absence. Health is about the same. No worse-no better. Will continue with once a month chemos. Thank you for your concern & prayers.
Onto the song… This song has spawned some very interesting remakes…
1) There is the K C & the Sunshine Band disco remake which is pretty bad — but kind of in a “so bad it is good” way. Worth hearing at least once.
2) Folk singer, David Wilcox, did a mellow remake in the early 90’s & it actually works pretty well. I have actually spoken with Mr Wilcox on the phone. He had no idea that he & KC had done versions of the same song! He got a good chuckle out of that
3) Pop singer Bobby Vee did a “Can’t Help Myself/Same Old Song” medley in 1968 which isn’t bad in a pop/soul sort of way
4) Supremes version isn’t bad, the Four Tops still own this song!
Re. Four Tops version — Basically a fine song though I tend to prefer their more atypical stuff.
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Welcome back Landini. I’d completely forgotten the KC version – and I own it. It’s in my record boxes with very little stylus wear since 1978. It actually managed to get to 35 Pop on Billboard.
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There is a “Can’t Help Myself” cycle that the Tops are traveling through right now. I’ll put in that this is the least compelling of the four. I love the burst of drums (there are a number of tunes around this time that begin with just that, and they all are slightly different). This is a dynamic opening.
It sounds almost like a live performance, and that adds to the excitement. But it doesn’t stand out among the other Tops records of this period — IMO. It’s got a lot of rough edges.
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Oh wow Rhine Ruder – “Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever” is one of my favorites (both the 4 Tops & Marvin Gaye’s versions). Assuming the covers you are talking about are “Walk Away Renee” & “Carpenter”. Love em both! I actually think that the 4 Tops’ version of “Renee” is better than the original. Also I like “I’m In A Different World”. Jermaine Jackson did a decent remake of “Different World” on his first solo album. Cheers! By the way, I may possibly be the only person in the known universe who really likes “In & Out of Love”. Also, I have noticed that people who do not normally care for soul music/Motown tend to like “The Happening” Hmmm!
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Martha & Vandellas 50th Anniversary Singles Collection includes a previously unreleased version of “Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever”.
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Totally off subject here, but I’ve just discovered Dusty Springfield’s “Have A Good Life Baby” and I can’t stop listening to it! lol. I love the song. Any thoughts anyone???
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Hi! Yeah I have heard it. It is a bonus track on “Dusty in Memphis” CD. Good song, though I haven’t heard it in ages.
Another off topic subject – I have been listening a lot to Electric Light Orch’s “Out of the Blue” from 1977 album. I know it isn’t “Soul” but as a Motown/Soul fan I really like that album. I find that when the different tracks are mixed in with Motown/Soul music on a random playlist they really fit in. I think that Motown’s influence on music (production values, etc) goes a lot deeper than we might think.
Re. my health. Latest Cat Scan shows no big change – but not worse. Will continue to take monthly chemos for awhile. Thanks for asking about me! Blessings to you!
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Soooo the only work I know by ELO is “Blinded by the Light” and the work they did on the Xanadu Soundtrack (which I love). I can believe that ELO mixes well with soul and motown and modern music of today because they had/have a futuristic sound that contains elements of the ol skool. I will have to search deeper into their cataloge.
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Oops. “Blinded by the Light” is Manfred Manns Earth Band (written/originally recorded by Bruce Springstreen) & definitely a cool song. Reminds me of my Freshmen year in college! Manfred Mann is another very underrated band (especially their 70s stuff) who had a little bit of soul here & there.
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Oh lol thanks for clearing that up lol didn’t ELO have a song called “Don’t Bring Me Down” or something like that?
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They did indeed.
Confession time. When I was about 12, ELO – or the Electric Light Orchestra, to give them their Sunday name – were probably my favourite band in the whole world. I had a cassette copy of the aforementioned “Out of the Blue” album, which I literally played to death in my old Walkman – as in, I played it and played it and played it until the tape wore out and snapped.
Part of this adoration was because I hadn’t really listened to very much popular music before I got into ELO. Your narrator is a bit of an oddball in a number of ways, most notably in that I was 14 or 15 before I started listening to the radio or buying records when they were new, as opposed to just playing and playing old tapes and LPs from the likes of Kraftwerk and T.Rex. And ELO, obviously.
Nowadays, whenever I get the urge for a bit of “golden age” (mid/late-Seventies) ELO, as I sometimes do, three things always strike me:
a. They are heavily indebted to the Beatles, almost to the point of parody in places. Indeed, there was a mid-Seventies quote from one of the Fabs (Harrison, I think?) who opined that there was no need for the Beatles to reform because ELO were already essentially making a series of Beatles albums. I don’t know if he meant it as a compliment. Of course, 12-year-old me, having never listened to a Beatles record in my life, had no way of knowing this, which made ELO’s Jeff Lynne – an appropriator (not a thief, but perhaps “adaptor”) of other people’s hooks and melodies par excellence – seem like the greatest songwriter in human history.
b. They are chronically silly. Hairy open-shirted white-boys with flared pants and Afros is one thing, but because they were British (and not just British, but from Birmingham – for US readers, Birmingham is the second largest city in England (home to almost 3 million people) and the engine room of the Industrial Revolution, but has struggled to shake off its reputation as a cultural backwater, having produced relatively few great artists, musicians, sports heroes, intellectuals or prominent politicians in comparison with the historically smaller likes of Liverpool or Manchester, together with a strong (“Brummie”) accent which somehow doesn’t sound erudite even if you’re discussing practical epistemology), for me they’ve never had the alien allure and sex appeal of American disco acts, they’ve always just been a bit, well, cringeworthy.
c. Crucially – brilliantly – they are completely unashamed by both of these things. This is admirable, and it demands a similar adjustment in the listener; leave all self-consciousness at the door.
ELO are not cool. They are so very un-cool; in many ways, they are the anti-cool. They also made some amazing records.
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Funny you should mention Harrison. I’ve been watching this awful Madonna movie called Shanghai Surprise. He does the score and title track which I like a lot lol.
Thanx Steve D. for the geography fact!
Even though ELO maybe uncool, this was a very cool confession/review/history lesson from you lol
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Grandpa Landini! How are you??? Hope all is well = )
Now you know how much I love The Supremes….everybody who follows this blog and read the comments know how much I adore the girls too, but yes I would have to agree with you that you just maybe the only person out there who likes “In & Out of Love” lol.
Interesting observation you have found about “The Happening” too.
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“In And Out Of Love” > “The Happening”
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yes, nixon! but both weaker than all of the other h/d/h supreme hits!
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Agree heartily. Especially when you measure the totality of Motown 1116 over the totality of Motown 1107. I’d rather be tested with a dozen consecutive listens of “I Guess I’ll Always Love You” over even three listens of “All I Know About You.” Yikes.
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To my ears this is the Motown Sound. Attention getting opening. Exploding bass figure, 4 on the floor snare, a bass drum figure that works with and without the bass guitar. Swelling strings, a tambourine playing a different beat, a sax solo in the bridge, a great dancing record. A catchy haunting melody, and serviceable lyrics. Levi Stubbs on lead vocals, who would you want to tell your story? The Tops giving support, it is a song that had it been officially released during the Disco extended mix period, could fill a side of an LP and actually raise the roof.
I understand the need to get new product out there, but this is not as thrown together as one would believe based on what one reads. OK the title was an inside joke, wink, wink, but this was no shabby rush job. I Can’t Help Myself was pop perfection, I did not like the song that much, and it does not age well, but this is a very good song, 8/10 is on target.
The various covers that are out there, sadly are light years away from the Tops original version.
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i think henry nails “same old song” on the head. the more well known, and constantly overplayed motown hits are too easy to like on their first listen … not much subtleness to them. the follow ups take longer to warm up to and better stand the test of time. i think nixon makes too much outta the fact that “same old song” was quickly written. i think many, if not most, of motown’s songs were quickly written. i continue to think nixon and i will clash on many record’s due almost exclusively on because of the fact that i bought the record the day it arrived in my local record store, and nixon is listening to many of these songs for the first time years after their release. this is no diss against nixon, but rather an interesting juxtaposition. i find nixon does make me think about the reason i love a certain song … but, i find that my assessment of the motown oeuvre has not appreciably changed over 50 years!
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I agree that ITSOS was rushed written ,and rushed produced and rushed released. it’s also one of the better 4 tops songs. I can just imagine HDH saying – That bastard wants another just like it. (Also, by this time one had to make an appointment to see Mr. Gordy). Shout out to Damecia, I’m going to have your back with In and Out. HDH had already stopped writing and if they had continued in the vein of Reflections, IN and Out would probably have made another great B side, but still a great song. I just heard The Happening full blast at Lowes and I’ll be sticking my head out fot that too.
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Interesting point Steve made about the tumbling of words in the beginning. I’ve seen the Tops perform countless times since that record was released and Levi never sings it like that. He phrases like the mike is picket-fencing. Kinda like: “You’re sweet/as a honey bee….honey bee sting…..left my heart in pain (out of meter pause)all you left….” You follow? Kinda like he’s conserving oxygen.
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H-D-H were definitely flexing their muscles around this time answering their critics (Including Phil Spector) “Yeah, Yeah, Whatever; Take This.” IMO, this is “I Can’t Help Myself” 2.0 and while the previous release may be overplayed or overexposed, this one still sounds fresh every time I hear it. Benny Benjamin is simply killing it on the drums, whipping that snare drum clear into 1966. For the Double Helping of this song, click here: http://youtu.be/Xf58XrKQNuk The Epitome of a Motown Hit. (“10”)
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Great review. I actually like this one quite a bit more than Sugar Pie Honey. As you say, that one is indebted to Where Did Our Love Go. This one uses the same rhythm for its thematic bass riff as Sugar Pie Honey but the notes are different, and better, and after all, this whole idea of building songs on thematic bass riffs is a huge, huge deal. Finally, I like these lyrics best of the three.
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“of course it isn’t [the same old song]! It is a spirited and driving number that is headed right for the very top and deservedly so. The Tops have seldom made a better side, and Levi Stubbs (who for my money has one of the best voices on record) leads with all he’s got, but still retains his cool. Vibes and the others give solid support to an outstanding production. 5/5
“Flip is familiar through their album and is a very worthwhile track that is both lyrical and smooth. 4/5”
[Dave Godin, Hitsville USA 8, 1965]
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Must be a 10 for me, and the second best Tops song after “Baby I Need Your Loving.” “I Can’t Help Myself” might have been a 10 standing on its own, but since these songs are fairly similar and this one is better, I think it knocks “I Can’t Help Myself” down to a relative 9. Joke title or no, the lyrics of the chorus go right to the heartstrings. This is pretty much the archetypal upbeat Motown track honed to perfection.
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fckn songs were great. doesn’t matter how or why. they all give a feeling when you hear them that moves you. can’t be replaced.
I think the epitome of the motown sound was the way underrated song, “I’m in a Different World”. it hits at the core of the Motown feel with Jamison’s incredible bass sound and weaving – in and out between the guitar and drums. then there’s the lead guitar. placed with perfect timing and feeling, not too much leaving you wanting more and more.
you can’t help yourself but love it. the harmonies in, “Sugar Pie Honey Bun”, do the same thing as the lead guitar in Different World. you want more. they weren’t sparse. they were perfect and catchy. like, “Wow” what was that? hit replay….
“Build me Up Buttercup” is another example of Motown feel and harmonies placed just in the right spots and amounts. and that feel…. you wish somehow the entire song could be filled with these gems every line, but, its… perfect the way it is.
“Ball of Confusion”, the mix of motown and psychadelic. incredible. just like the Supremes “Reflections”. Just like, “Baby Love”, the song is just moseying along then that sax lead with that drive of the beat is perfect. orgasmic… timeless.
Stevie Wonder’s, “I Was Made to Love Her”. another feeling (bass line and almost gospel-like harmonies) that hits the core of Motown. Written to the heart! Incredible passion. His best song.
there’s so many more I can’t remember. I want to include them all. Marvalettes, Mary Wells, Miracles, I could go on. I never put Jackson Five in this category because they didn’t have that Ampeg, setup thru Vox sounfd that made Motown. anything without this is not “roots Motown” to me.
feel free to contact me to talk more. Motown will always hold a special place in my heart that inspired me at that time and age growing up and playing music myself.
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also, motown had a huge influence on my drumming. the tambourine-like high-hat and snare with the ludwig trap set toms. pure!
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