Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

Thank my new friend Charlie for this instalment in the Answer Records series; covering the reply to Universal Soldier was his suggestion. Besides the conflict of ideology, we have Billie Jean creating a bit of a scene and Sam Cooke begging his woman to return to him. But will she, and is the kid Jacko’s son?

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Who does Wacko think he is?

Act 1: Michael Jackson – Billie Jean (Demo) (1982).mp3
Renowned laydees man Michael Jackson’s denial of paternity in relation to Billie Jean’s kid is well known. Our man is not impressed when his disco dancing is disrupted by the appearance of the woman who claims that he fathered her son. He pretends not to know her, but he does admit that he followed Billie Jean into a room (because of her perfume, apparently), and then did not have sex with that woman. Perhaps the excessive consumption of Jesus-juice made Jacko forget the act that spawned a kid with his eyes, as his girl (presumably the one he won in the contest with Paul McCartney) confirms. The kid might have his eyes, but still Michael denies paternity. Not only that, he accuses Billie Jean if all manner of dishonest schemes and duplicity — and of being just some random girl.

Act 2: Lydia Murdock – Superstar (1983).mp3
Billie Jean, it’s safe to say, is rather disappointed by Michael’s denial. In her rather more convincing version, the two had an affair which Michael asked to be handled with discretion. “You became my lover, you said: ‘Let’s keep it secret, let’s not spread it around’.” The trade-off for being a secret lover? Expensive gifts and smooth-talk: “You send me flowers and diamonds, and said that you were in love. You said you never met a girl that you thought so much of.” The cad! And when he had had enough of Billie Jean, he just stopped calling. In an instance of bad timing, Billie Jean soon discovered that she was pregnant. “And when the baby was born I sent you a telegram, but it came back saying you don’t know who I am.” So when Billie Jean goes out dancing (her son presumably in good care) and spots Michael, she goes ballistic: “I did not intend to start a fight, but when you said who am I, you don’t know my face, I went off. I made a scene, I really wrecked the place. And I know you might be a big superstar and the whole wide world knows who you are, but the next time we meet, if you don’t want a scene, tip your hat with respect, ’cause I am Billie Jean.” And some child support would be nice too, she might add.

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Running from an elf

Act 1: Buffy Sainte-Marie – Universal Soldier (1964).mp3
If we want peace, all soldiers must just refuse to fight. It’s an easy equation, but, well, it’s not entirely lacking in naivety. Donovan (or Donovan or, in the original recording, The Highwaymen ) asks how without the universal soldier “would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau?” Which is a bit of a strange question: more likely, the refusenik would have been executed at Dachau for the act of refusing to fight, no? Still, the soldier is “the one who gives his body as a weapon of the war. And without him all this killing can’t go on.” So, until all soldiers turn into conscientious objectors, the argument goes, they are personally to blame for war.

Act 2: Jan Berry – Universal Coward (1965).mp3
The hippy sentiment is not universally shared, least of all among the clean cut youth represented by surfer duo Jan & Dean (Dean Torrence wanted no part of the song, so it was released as a solo record by Jan Berry, who here sports the broken leg that kept him from being drafted. It did turn up on Jan & Dean Rock ‘n Folk album though). Jan is mightily pissed off that the responsibility for war is being shifted on to the runts in the trenches. With soldiers in Vietnam serving what Berry evidently thought was a just cause, the peacenik “just can’t get it through his thick skull why the mighty USA has got to be a watchdog of the world” — an opinion perpetuated by any Dick, Don and Dubya three and a half decades later. Berry defines the peacenik: “He’s a pacifist, an extremist, a communist or just a Yank; a demonstrator, an agitator, or just a knave.  A conscientious objector, a fanatic, a defector — and he doesn’t know he’s digging his own grave.” And then, by way of lazy rhyme, he gets his digs in before arriving at a nonsensical conclusion: “He’s the universal coward, and he runs from anything: from a giant, from a human, from an elf. He runs from Uncle Sam, and he runs from Vietnam. But most of all he’s running from himself.” Give that man some tea!

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Can a cad get forgiveness?

Act 1: Sam Cooke – Bring It On Home To Me (1962).mp3
Sam is heartbroken because he has been left by the woman he loves. At first he laughed it off, literally: “You know I laughed when you left, but now I know I’ve only hurt myself.” So now he is begging her to come back: “If you ever change your mind about leaving me behind, bring it to me. Bring your sweet lovin’, bring it on home to me.” He is making extravagant promises: “I’ll give you jewellery, money too.” And, in case she is not so much of a material girl, “You know I’ll always be your slave till I’m dead and buried in my grave”  — which we know, alas, will be all to soon.

Act 2: Carla Thomas – I’ll Bring It On Home To You (1962).mp3
Sam’s sweet-talk worked. Carla is packing her bags as we speak: “Darling, you’ve made me change my mind. I can’t leave you leave you behind. I’m gonna bring it to you, bring my sweet loving, bring it on home to you.” Carla is satisfied that he has learnt his lesson: “I heard you laughing when I left. So now you know, you only hurt yourself.” Sam gets forgiveness, even though it was he “who stayed out late at night”. She is not a material girl: “Don’t want your jewellery or money too and nothing else you said you would do. I’m just gonna bring it to you.” And then the poignant verse: “You said you’d always be my slave till you were buried in your grave, but you got a little time yet…”

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More answer records

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In the fourth instalment of this series we’ll look at Chuck Berry’s hit that deliberately borrowed from a country tune, a song that made a four-stage transition from crooner standard to soul classic, and Bob Marley’s possibly unintended homage to a kids’ TV show. I should stress that I’m not suggesting plagiarism or other unethical actions by anybody (let’s save that for the inevitable mammoth Led Zep post).

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Dykes Magic City Trio – Ida Red (1927).mp3
Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys – Ida Red (1938).mp3
Bob Wills & his Texas Playboys – Ida Red Likes The Boogie (1949).mp3
Chuck Berry – Maybellene (1955).mp3
Chuck Berry himself said that he based Maybellene, his debut record, on country musician Bob Wills’ vocal version of the traditional fiddle number Ida Red, recorded in 1938. Released on Chess in July 1955, Maybellene was a breakthrough song for the nascent rock & roll genre. Berry’s debut single was the first rock & roll record performed by a black musician to break the Billboard top 10 (those were pioneer days; bear in mind that Elvis was still a regional star and yet to sign with RCA).

Playing the piano at that session was Johnny Johnson, who had given Berry something of a break in 1952 when he let him join his Sir John Trio, and to whose prodigious drinking Berry’s later hit Johnny B. Goode was dedicated. One of the trio’s staple songs was a take on Ida Red, based on Wills’ 1938 recording. Berry, already brimming with charisma and showmanship, had taken that song to Chess in Chicago, and signed for the label as a solo artist. Pragmatically, Johnson and the third member of the trio, drummer Ebby Hardy, became members of Berry’s backing band. Now Leo Chess suggested that Ida Red be remodelled as a 12-bar blues, with different lyrics. Johnson reworked the arrangements, and Berry came up with the lyrics about the car and a girl, those rock & roll staples.

Bob Wills claimed that he played rock & roll decades before the genre was invented. He can’t have meant the sound itself, but the fusion of musical influences from across the racial divide, and the innovative use of instrumentation in the western swing sub-genre of country which Wills helped pioneer. On Ida Red, which preceded Wills breakthrough hit New San Antonio Rose by two years, Wills used drums, which were very unusual in country music (a term which wasn’t even known yet). The song, one of several riffing on the Ida Red character, had first been recorded  in 1924 by Fiddlin’ Powers & Family, and to greater public attention by the Dykes Magic City Trio in 1927. Wills put the tune to a 2/4 beat and gave the it new lyrics, which borrowed from a 1878 song called Sunday Night, written by Frederick W Root. In 1949, Wills revisited Ida Red with a sequel titled Ida Red Likes The Boogie.  Berry and Johnson may well have known that version, and one can imagine how it might have served to inspire Maybellene (just listen to the guitar), but it is the 1938 recording only which they have credited as the template for the song.

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Ruth Etting – Try A Little Tenderness (1933).mp3
Bing Crosby – Try A Little Tenderness (1933).mp3
Little Miss Cornshucks – Try A Little Tenderness (1952).mp3
Aretha Franklin – Try A Little Tenderness (1962).mp3
Sam Cooke – Medley-Try A Little Tenderness/(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons/ You Send Me (1964).mp3
Otis Redding – Try A Little Tenderness (1966).mp3
Before it became a soul standard, Try A Little Tenderness was a standard, first recorded by Ray Noble and his Orchestra in 1932, and a year later by Ruth Etting, then by Bing Crosby, and subsequently by vocalists ranging from Frank Sinatra to Jimmy Durante.  Otis Redding is being credited with reinventing the song as a soul tune, but his take was only the fourth (and final) stage of the tune’s evolution as a soul classic.

Before Otis, Sam Cooke recorded a fragment of the song as part of a rather lovely medley on his 1964 Sam Cooke At The Copa album. It was in fact that fragment which gave Stax executives the idea that Redding should cover it in 1966. Otis did so with great reluctance, not because he hated the song, but because he felt he could not measure up to his by now deceased hero Cooke. Produced by Isaac Hayes and backed by Booker T & the MGs, Redding did all he could to mess up the song so that it could not be released. He failed, and the song is now irrevocably his.

Redding apparently knew only Coke’s version (hence the abridged lyrics). Cooke in turn had decided to include Tenderness in his medley having heard the song on Aretha Franklin’s 1962 album The Tender, The Moving, The Swinging Aretha Franklin. As fine as an interpreter of songs as Franklin would become (and already was at the age of 20), her version — soul-inflected vocals backed with an easy listening string arrangement — seems to have drawn from that by the forgotten Little Miss Cornshucks, whose 1951 recording was the first to Try A Little Tenderness the R&B treatment.

Born Mildred Cummings in Dayton, Ohio, in 1923, Little Miss Cornshucks came to the notice of future Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun while performing in a Washington club during her 1943 US tour, where her stage appearance was based on the rural shtick her name suggests, wearing the shabby dress she would later sing about. She was the first artist he recorded, and thereby the impetus for what would eventually become Atlantic Records (on which Aretha Franklin would record, though in 1962 she was on Columbia). Little Miss Cornshucks broke through as a recording artist in the latter years of the 1940s, particularly with her signature song So Long. Soon her star faded. In 1952 she recorded on three different labels, including Columbia. Her version of Try A Little Tenderness, however, was released in late May on Coral, a subsidiary of Decca, for whom she had recorded So Long.  Little Miss Cornshucks soon drifted away, just as her imitator Miss Sharecropper started to find success on Atlantic as LaVerne Baker. She died in 1999. (Read the full story of Little Miss Cornshucks at the excellent No Depression archives)

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Banana Splits – The Tra La La Song (One Banana, Two Banana) (1968).mp3
Bob Marley – Buffalo Soldier (1980).mp3
This series was inspired by Timothy English’s books Sounds Like Teen Spirit (website and buy), a collection of “stolen melodies, ripped-off riffs”. The book includes a number of surprising instances of soundalikes. One of the least expected is the connection between the theme song of a late 1960s US television kids’ show and a Bob Marley hit.

Buffalo Soldiers, a song about a regiment of black soldiers who fought in wars against Native Americans on the side of their oppressor, was recorded during the 1980 sessions for  Marley’s Uprising album (it was a posthumous hit in 1983 after inclusion on the Legend album). English writes that “in the middle, and again at the end of Buffalo Soldier, Marley breaks into a wordless note-for-note rendition of – of all things – the Banana Splits Theme.” He is referring to the woy-yoy-yoy ad lib, which does indeed sound exactly like the beginning and chorus of the theme song, written by Mark Barkan, who also wrote Manfred Mann’s Pretty Flamingo, and Richie Adams, both of whom also contributed to The Monkees and The Archies (other writers for the Banana Splits show included Gene Pitney, Al Kooper and Barry White).

The Banana Splits Adventure Hour was a late ’60s kids’ TV show modelled loosely on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In and The Monkees, with stuffed animals taking the parts of the musicians (yeah, I know). English alleges no plagiarism on Marley’s part, but speculates that a little known passage in the life of Robert Nesta Marley  might have implanted the relatively obscure TV theme — it just scraped into the Billboard top 100, peaking at #96 in February 1969 — in the great man’s head. Periodically, the pre-fame Marley would live with his mother Cedella in Wilmington, Delaware, working at the Chrysler assembly line. One such spell, with his kids in tow, was half a year from April to October 1969, just as the Banana Splits show was running on Saturday morning TV and its theme possibly received some residual radio airplay…

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More Copy Borrow Steal

Almost all of the previous 36 instalments of The Originals consisted of five songs each. The inaugural post had ten tracks, one (or was it two?) had six. Which makes for 186 tracks that have been, well, covered. Truth be told, researching five songs at a time has been so much a burden on my time that at times I’ve not been motivated to start a new post. Maybe by reducing the number to three I’ll update this series more enthusiastically in future. I still have many lesser-known originals to write about.

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Cowboy Copas – Tennessee Waltz (1948).mp3
Pee Wee King – Tennessee Waltz (1948).mp3
Patti Page – Tennessee Waltz (1950).mp3
Les Paul & Mary Ford – Tennessee Waltz (1951).mp3
Sam Cooke – Tennessee Waltz (1964).mp3
On a Friday night in 1946, country singer and accordionist Pee Wee King (who was born by the decidedly un-country name Julius Kuczynski in Milwaukee) was driving with Redd Stewart, fiddler and singer with King’s Golden West Cowboys, to Nashville when the radio played bluegrass legend Bill Monroe’s Kentucky Waltz. Wondering why nobody ever dedicated a waltz to Tennessee — home to country music capital Nashville, after all — they decided to relieve the boredom of the long drive by writing one, setting lyrics, written on a matchbox, to an instrumental they had been playing in concerts, the No Name Waltz.

One might think that Pee Wee King’s version, with Stewart on vocals, would be the first to be recorded. However, he was scooped by Cowboy Copas, who would perish on the plane that killed Patsy Cline (one of the many who later covered Tennessee Waltz). Lloyd Copas had been a singer with Pee Wee King’s band in the early 1940s, succeeding Eddy Arnold. It may be that Pee Wee first gave the song to his old frontman, who made a recording of it in April 1947 for (ironically) King Records in Cincinnatti, and another in June that year. It is most likely the latter recording that was released in March 1948 and became a #3 country hit. Pee Wee King recorded his version in December 1947. Also released in early 1948, it also peaked at #3, but at half a million copies sold more than Copas’ take.

By 1950, Tennessee Waltz had become something of a country classic, and even jazz singer Anita O’Day had covered it, when it became a mammoth crossover hit for Patti Page, whose version remains the best known. It topped the pop, country and R&B charts simultaneously, a unique feat. As so often, the big hit was first a b-side, in this case to the less than immortal Boogie Woogie Santa Claus. For a b-side, much effort went into the production, which used a rudimentary form of vocal overdubbing to go with the backing track by the Jack Rael Orchestra. An acetate was recorded of Page singing the song, and this would be played into one microphone while Page sang into a second microphone. Page’s version of her dad’s favourite song went on to sell 6 million copies.

Tennessee Waltz was awarded BMI’s 3,000,000 Airplay Award in 2004. Only five other songs have achieved that honour.

Also recorded by: Roy Acuff (1949), Jo Stafford (1950), Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians (1950), John ‘Schoolboy’ Porter (1950), Stick McGhee (1950), Anita O’Day (1951), Spike Jones (1951), The Fontane Sisters (1951), Eddy Arnold (1956), Floyd Cramer (as part of a medley, 1957), The Louvin Brothers (1958), Bill Vaughn (1958), Faron Young (1959), Connie Francis (1959), Chet Atkins (1959), Bobby Comstock & The Counts (1959), Jerry Fuller (1959), Four Jacks (1960), Red Hewitt & the Buccaneers (1960), Tennessee Ernie Ford (1960), Grady Martin and The Slewfoot Five (1960), Kitty Wells (1960), Gus Backus (1960), Don Robertson (1961), Webb Pierce (1962), Homer & Jethro (1962), Pat Boone (1962), The Violents (1962), Alma Cogan (1964), Anna King (1964), Sam Cooke (1964), Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas (1965), Chet Atkins (1966), Slim Whitman (1966), Manfred Mann (1966), Ernest Tubb (1966), Ray Brown & the Whispers (1966), Otis Redding (1966), Richard “Groove” Holmes and the Super Soul Big Band (1967), Chuck Jackson & Maxine Brown (1967), Johnny Jones (1968), American Soul Train (1968), Dottie West (1968), Sue Thompson (1969), Leon Haywood (1969), Ferlin Husky (1969), Don Gibson (1969), Napoleon Jr (1969), Danny Davis & the Nashville Brass (1970), Lou Donaldson (1970), Bobbi Martin (1971), David Bromberg (1972), American Spring (1972), Boots Randolph (1974), Ella Fitzgerald & Joe Pass (1976), Pete Tex (1976), Gitte (1977), Anne Murray (1978), Tielman Brothers (1979), Lacy J. Dalton (1980), Emmylou Harris (1981), Billie Jo Spears (1981), James Brown (1983), Willie Nelson & Hank Williams (1984), Audrey Landers (1986), George Adams (1989), Holly Cole Trio (1993), Tom Jones with the Chieftans (1995), Richard Hindman Trio (1995), Sally Timms (1997), Linda Martin (1998), James Last (1998), Sarah Harmer & Jason Euringer (1999), Sam Moore (2002), André Rieu (2002), Joel Harrison feat. Norah Jones (2002), Eva Cassidy (released in 2002), Joel Harrison (2003), Leonard Cohen (2004), Herb Alpert (2005), Hem (2006), Pete Molinari (2009), Isabelle Boulay (2009) a.o.

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Johnny & Jackey – Someday We’ll Be Together (1961).mp3
Diana Ross and the Supremes – Someday We’ll Be Together (1969).mp3
Frederick Knight – Someday We’ll Be Together (1973).mp3
The Supremes’ sentimental farewell song with Diana Ross proved less than prescient (if we disregard the awkward performance of it on 1983’s Motown 25th anniversary show), and La Ross probably never thought that she “made a big mistake” by leaving.

The song was originally recorded in 1961 by the R&B duo Johnny & Jackie, in a Drifters-style arrangement. The Johnny half of the Detroit duo was Johnny Bristol, and Jackey was his singing and songwriting partner — and ex-air force compadre — Jackey Beavers. They co-wrote Someday We’ll Be Together with the great Harvey Fuqua, on whose Tri-Phi label the single appeared. It was not a big hit, and after several years of trying, Bristol and Beavers went their separate ways, with Jackey signing for Chess Records.

Bristol went on to become a noted producer on Motown, working with Fuqua on songs such as Marvin Gaye’s Ain’t No Mountain High Enough and David Ruffin’s My Whole World Ended. Bristol had the distinction of producing the final singles by both the Supremes and the Miracles before their headliners departed. That means, of course, that Bristol produced the song which he had co-written and first recorded for Diana Ross and the Supremes. The other Supremes didn’t actually appear on it (which makes the decision to play Some Day We’ll Be Together at Florence Ballard’s funeral seem quite odd). Bristol had intended the song for Jr Walker and the All Stars, for whom he had already written the hit What Does It Take (To Make You Love Me). He had laid down the arrangement and backing vocals, by Maxine and Julia Waters, when Gordy decided that this would be the song with which to launch Diana’s solo career. On reflection, probably because of the title, he instead issued it as a farewell song for Diana Ross and the Supremes.

The male voice on the song is Bristol’s. Not satisfied with Ross’ performance, he harmonised with her, ad libbing encouragements. The sound engineer accidentally captured these, and the since it sounded good, it was decided to keep them in. Diana Ross & the Backing Singers’ single topped the US charts (perhaps fittingly, the last chart-topper of the ’60s) , which meant that Berry Gordy, who was intent on having the Ross-led Supremes go out with a #1, could release Reach Out And Touch (Somebody’s Hands) as Diana’s solo debut.

Johnny Bristol, who died in 2004, continued producing after leaving Motown (he lent Boz Scaggs that blue-eyed soul inflection), and had some success as a singer, most notably with the 1974 hit Hang On In There Baby. He also wrote and recorded the first version of the Osmonds’ hit Love Me For A Reason, which will feature later in this series.

Frederick Knight’s 1973 version slows down the song and gives it a proper southern soul treatment. It was not a hit, but it may be the best version of the song (by the man who went on to write Anita Bell’s disco classic Ring My Bell).

Also recorded by: Boogaloo Joe Jones (1970), Brenda & the Tabulations (1970), Shirley Scott (1970), The Marvelettes (1970), Bobby Darin (1971), Bill Anderson & Jan Howard (1972), Dionne Warwicke (1972), Frederick Knight (1973), The Pointer Sisters (1982), Lorrie Morgan (1983), Jimmy Somerville (1995), LaToya Jackson (1995), Vonda Shepard (1999)

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Bolland – You’re In The Army Now (1983).mp3
Status Quo – In The Army Now (1986).mp3
The year 1986 was lucrative for the brothers Bolland, Rob and Ferdi. First their song Rock Me Amadeus, performed by the Austrian cult singer Falco, topped the UK charts (having been a huge hit in Europe the previous year), and then Status Quo hit the top 10 with their cover of the brothers’ 1981 song In The Army Now.

Born in Port Elizabeth, South Africa (in the same region that gave the world the entirely unneccesary Dave Matthews), the Bolland brothers had emigrated to the Netherlands, and started their recording career in 1972 as a folk-rock duo along the lines of Simon & Garfunkel. When that genre became passé, they hooked into the electronic sounds of the late 1970s. In The Army Now was a big hit in South Africa, where conscription applied to only white men, many of whom were sent to fight in the war with Angola, apartheid’s Vietnam. The single did only moderately well elsewhere, and the Bolland brothers became record producers, counting among their clients Falco, Amii Stewart, Samantha Fox, Suzi Quatro and Dana International.

Meanwhile, Status Quo’s Francis Rossi had heard In The Army Now on the radio while driving in Germany, and proposed it to his band, which by now had lost bassist Alan Lancaster and drummer John Coughlan. The song took the Quo to #2 in Britain.

Also recorded by: Laibach (1994), Les Enfoirés (as Ici les Enfoirés, 2009)

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More Originals

The theme of unrequited love continues to provide a goldmine, and we’re not even close to even scratching the surface! It’s a universal thing, of course; most people have had a bout of unrequited love. If it was infatuation, they got over it fairly soon. If it really was love, they bear the scars forever. Or at least until they find another true love. Surveying the search engine terms that bring visitors here, there are many people looking for music to soundtrack their lovelorn existence (there are also lots of hits for the songs about impossible love, which tells you all you need to know about just how fucked up a thing romance is). Anyway, if he or she doesn’t love you back, remember to love yourself.

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Cat Stevens – Here Comes My Baby (1967).mp3
Well, it does sound like everything is well with the still beardless Cat. He’s taking a walk at midnight, which is nice. But soon we are alerted that all is, in fact, not well, for the mile he walks is not only long (as miles go), but also lonely. And he keeps “seeing this picture of you”. Which is were the songtitle comes in. But, oh no, she’s not alone: “It comes as no surprise to me, [she’s] with another guy”. And things don’t look like she’ll dump the chump any time soon: “Walking with a love, with a love that’s all so fine. Never could be mine, no matter how I try.” So is Cat entirely discouraged and looking to move on? Is he fuck! Like anybody in unrequited love, he hangs on to that thread of hope woven from the strands of a particularly thin cobweb: “I’m still waiting for your heart, because I’m sure that some day it’s gonna start.” Let’s make a bet it won’t, Cat. The loser turns Muslim.

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Warren Zevon – A Certain Girl (1980).mp3
Zevon is having a conversation about his unrequited love — and not just unrequited love, but the dreaded frienditis —coyly refusing to reveal the name (aaah!) of the “certain chick I’ve been sweet on since I met her”, which is “a long, long time” ago. He resolves that “someday I’m going to wake up and say: ‘I’ll do anything just to be your slave’”. In the interim he’ll do what most guys in unrequited love do: procrastinate, hoping that the girl will suddenly realise that actually she is in love with him. Which she won’t, not because Warren refers to her as a “chick”, but because, as she will point out, it’ll destroy the fucking friendship.

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Earth, Wind & Fire – Wait (1979).mp3
Frienditis is indeed a bastard. Here, our singer is suffering his frienditis with a heroic and surprisingly jaunty optimism, as though he is inebriated with the godfather of self-help books, The Power Of Positve Thinking. “To wait, it takes love that’s for real”, and if his love is authentic, he reasons, reciprocity is inevitable. The certainty — not just mere hope — that she will eventually fall for him sustains him. All he needs is patience, that great source of succor for the poor devils suffering from frienditis: “It’s crazy if you think we’re just friends. Loving when infatuation ends. The wait for you, baby it now begins.” He seems to pick up mixed signals — “You sigh, when I come close to your heart” — which persuade him that she shall come around (“someday you’ll grow”). Of course, these sighs might be prompted by her discomfort at his clumsy moves, perhaps because she knows how he feels, and how she feels, and that there will be one broken heart and the end of a friendship.

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Sam Cooke – Cupid (live, 1963).mp3
Ah, a Cupid who unquestioningly follows orders would be a fine thing. Alas, the best alternative, if one wishes to invoke imaginary entities, is to outline your predicament with a plea for intercession. Sam, heard here in his live performance at the Harlem Square Club, states his case to Cupid with humility and urgency: “Now, I don’t mean to bother you, but I’m in distress. There’s danger of me losin’ all of my happiness, for I love a girl who doesn’t know I exist. And this you can fix.” He knows Cupid’s methods — “draw back your bow and let your arrow go straight to my lover’s heart for me” — and makes a pretty big pledge should Cupid choose to make “a love storm” for him: “I promise I will love her until eternity”. Ah, go on then Cupid, let’s test the dude’s ambitious promise.

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Pete Yorn – A Girl Like You (2001).mp3
If you can’t get the one you want, aspire for a clone. That’s what Pete Yorn is doing on this rather good bonus track from his musicforthemorningafter album: “Some day I’ll look into her green eyes and know that she’ll come with me – a girl like you. Tomorrow I think I’ll tell you something, the thing that I haven’t said – to a girl like you.” The poor girl-like-her will, of course, be just a proxy, forever liable to be compared to Unrequited-love Girl, and possibly hear Pete moaning Unrequited-love Girl’s name in the throes of passion. And, unless Pete isn’t just throwing a strop here, he might pass on some perfectly great girls who don’t have green eyes…

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Liz Phair – Extraordinary (2003).mp3
An anthem for the outsider girl in love with a guy who she thinks has too high expectations. He might see her as average, but she thinks of herself as extraordinary. And not just ordinarily extraordinary; she’s “your ordinary, average, every day sane psycho supergoddess”. And she’ll go to extraordinary measures to get him (or at least his attention); “I drive naked through the park, and run the stop sign in the dark; stand in the street, yell out my heart…To make you love me.” I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there probably is a good reason why the guy isn’t falling for Liz.

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Mama Cass Elliott – I Can Dream, Can’t I? (1969).mp3
The story of Cass’ life in the ’60s was defined by her unrequited love for Papa Denny Doherty, with whom she started on the road to stardom in the Mugwumps. So when she sang about unrequited love (as she did with Denny on Glad To Be Unhappy) in this beautiful version of the old standard, she did so from her broken heart, the pain of which is palliated by daydreaming. She doesn’t go into the specifics of her reverie, other than “that I’m locked in the bend of your embrace”. She takes a frequent reality check as she justifies why she won’t give up on her dream: “I can see no matter how near you’ll be, you’ll never belong to me. But I can dream, can’t I?”

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Wilco – I’m The Man Who Loves You (2002).mp3
Tweedy goes all poetic on us, blathering on about unsent love letters and dropping metaphors about him apparently being like the sea. Basically your average victim of unrequited love who can’t find the right words to say. And then he nails it when he makes the most basic observation: “But if I could, you know, I would just hold your hand and you’d understand: I’m the man who loves you.” Sometimes that works better than complex literal devices.

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Indigo Girls – Ghost (1992).mp3
The spectre of a person the singer was in love with (unrequited, death; though a line in the first verse suggests that it might have been a failed adolescent relationship) lingers still, and does terrible injury. “And time passed makes it plain, of all my demon spirits I need you the most. I’m in love with your ghost.” She has sexual dreams about the person which just add to the pain: “When I wake, the things I dreamt about you last night make me blush. And you kiss me like a lover, then you sting me like a viper.” The protagonist is trapped by a love that will never find expression: “Unknowing captor, you never know how much you pierce my spirit. But I can’t touch you. Can you hear it? A cry to be free. Oh, I’m forever under lock and key as you pass through me.”

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Merle Haggard – Always Wanting You (1975).mp3
Apparently a song about Dolly Parton. As country singers do, Merle is telling Dolly, and us, exactly how he feels: “Always wanting you but never having you makes it hard to face tomorrow, ’cause I know I’ll be wanting you again. Always loving you but never touching you sometimes hurts me almost more than I can stand.” And there he had thought that he had it all together. The song could go into the post on love that can’t be, and maybe that’s where it belongs, since there seemed to have been “a yearning and a feeling across the room that you felt for me”, suggesting that Merle’s feelings were reciprocated, if not actually acted on. Of course, when a relationship isn’t possible, love remains unrequited even when the sentiments are reciprocal. Either way, Merle regrets knowing her: “I’d been better off if I’d turned away and never looked at you the second time.”

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Here is the second volume of ’60s soul tracks. Some of these songs are pretty well-known, but many others are hidden or forgotten gem. Eddie Holland’s track is as much a gem as it is a historical curiosity; it’s one of the few records he released on Motown before Berry Gordy decided that Eddie, with Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier, should work exclusively as one of the label’s in-house writer/producer teams, in particular for the Supremes and the Four Tops . Read more…

The third and final part of the ’60s soul series opens the way for my real passion: the soul music of the ’70s, when the sharp suits, raw sexuality and growls of the ’60s gave way to afros, falsettos and flamboyant outfits. In the meantime, enjoy the final eleven classics of ’60s soul. Read more…