SONG OF THE DAY

“Tracks Of My Tears” by Smokey Robinson & The Miracles (Going To A Go-Go, Tamla, 1965). Written by William “Smokey” Robinson, Jr., Warren “Pete” Moore, and Marvin “Marv” Tarplin of “The Miracles”.

WHY TODAY?

I couldn’t stop singing this tonight! It was my lullaby to Todd tonight, and then after he fell asleep I just kept humming it to myself. I’m on a bad sleep cycle and often stay up much later than him, so imagine two hours of humming this song while browsing wedding invitations online until 3 am. Yeah, it was a weird night. But this song is great, don’t get me wrong there! One of my all-time favorite Motown hits! And that’s a hard thing to say for someone who spent their formative years (ages 6-18) in Motown. You know what? Motown deserves a Top 10 list today. Ahoy! See below!

MY TOP 10 ALL-TIME FAVORITE DESERT ISLAND LIST OF MOTOWN TRACKS (excluding Stevie Wonder)

Okay, let me first defend why I leave out Stevie Wonder from a Top-10 Motown list: because I can’t possibly acknowledge all of the other great artists who recorded with Motown/ Tamla Records during its lifetime if I include such a seminal discography as Stevie Wonder’s work. Yes, his entire career has been with that record label, so yeah, that’s five decades of stuff, and deserves its own Top 20 list. And as arbitrary as a Top-10 list is, I logistically couldn’t give more than a few slots to the same artist, and since I can’t even get smaller than a Top 5 by Stevie, he would be half the list. Since his work also spans decades, it spans genres and tastes, and what I’m trying to do is work with the seminal years known as the Motown sound. Seminal enough for ya?

So, without further adieu, here are my 10 favorite songs recorded at Hitsville U.S.A., songs that I love to the core:

1. “It’s A Shame” - The Spinners: Love this song. Love the lead guitar melody. Love the lyrics. Have loved this song for years. Love the harmony of the backup singers. Love the falsetto bridge. Would definitely make a list of my 100 All-Time Favorite songs. Jeez, don’t talk to me about a list like that…it could kill me.
2. “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology Song)” – Marvin Gaye: What a set of lyrics. What a thoughtful, dramatic plea, and at the same time an unabashed, personal struggle, all set to beautiful chords. Eek, I love this song (more than “What’s Going On?,” but only slightly). This is my favorite Marvin Gaye, and I obviously couldn’t do a Motown Top 10 without remembering the man.
3. “Ball Of Confusion” – The Temptations: Ooh, lord, I love this song! I don’t really like the early, classic Temptations stuff (with the exception of “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg”). Don’t get me wrong, I know all the lyrics to all of the Temptations greatest hits, but I truly prefer their later funk-infused sounds. Truthfully, I sing “Papa Was A Rolling Stone” on an almost daily basis, but I would want this song on the desert island over that song because I feel like if I was actually on a desert island, I would prefer to remember that the world was going to hell in a hand basket, and therefore it wouldn’t be so bad to be stuck on the island. Yeah, I’m really taking that literally.
4. “Twenty-Five Miles” - Edwin Starr: This song is a motivator. It makes you strut your stuff, drive with more energy, walk it out. I need it on the island.
5. “Bernadette” – Four Tops: My favorite Four Tops song, hands down. I love the rolling motion of the song. I love the screaming of her name, such anguish and sincerity. This is a quintessential ballad to me, a story through and through.
6. “Love Child” - Diana Ross & The Supremes: On the desert island, this song would serve as my comic relief. When I was a teenager, I used to call my sister “Freak Child” and sing these lyrics to her. The first lyrics of the song are sung by the backup singers and go like this: “tenement slum”. Ah, sweet music to my ears. I used to sing “Freak Child, never meant to be, Freak Child, born in poverty, Freak Child, I’ll always love youuu.” And yeah, she actually liked it.
7. “If I Were Your Woman” – Gladys Knight & The Pips: First found out about this song from someone doing it on an early season of American Idol, which used to be a good show. This song is so powerful and makes me moody and takes me over. I can’t do it as a karaoke song because it chokes me up, that’s how much this song gets me. It’s why I have to resort to joking around on low notes singing Toni Braxton’s “Unbreak My Heart”. I play the clown.
8. “Smiling Faces Sometimes” - The Undisputed Truth: This is a very distinct memory for me. These lyrics hit me right at the point in adolescence when I could fully understand them. I mean, of course the meaning changes over time again and again, but at age 11 or 12 or whatever I was, I got this. In my own world experience, with people acting like friends but not really caring, “a smile is a frown turned upside down” really eased my mind during lonely lunches. As I listen to it now, it’s not about that at all— that evolution of meaning is so amazing.
9. “The Tracks Of My Tears” – The Miracles: Great song. One of the all-time greatest. Love the heartache, love the story, LOVE singing along to it. And you need songs like that on a desert island, right?
10. “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg” – The Temptations: Todd sings this song to me a lot, so it has memories of him deeply ingrained in it. It wasn’t a song I really liked before Todd, but that was six years ago, a lifetime ago, so who cares anymore. It’s just that I don’t really like the classic Temptations sound, I like their later, funky stuff better. But yeah, love made me love this song.

Shortlist:

1. “It’s The Same Old Song” – Four Tops: I love this song, but I really REALLY love “Bernadette” better, and when I think about other Motown songs I love, this ranks in at a solid #11.
2. “Do You Love Me” - The Contours: Classic oldie, I think I’ll play it at my wedding. But I didn’t think I needed it on a desert island. Although a dance party might break up the monotony….
3. “Beechwood 4-5789” – The Marvelettes: Oh do I love this song! But it can get a little psychotic if you listen to this song on repeat, so I don’t think I want to bring it onto the ol’ island.
4. “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing” – Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell: I wanted my Top 10 to represent the Marvin Gaye I prefer, and since I only had 10 picks to do it in, I chose to represent the socially conscious, serious later works of Marvin Gaye, rather than the earlier love song duets with Tammi Terrell. This is definitely my favorite of their duets though, a solid #1 on that list, and much much better than “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”. I’m over that song.
5. “What’s Going On?” – Marvin Gaye: “Mercy Mercy Me” just edged this song out, but it’s a solid Top 15 contender.

Honorable Mentions:

These are songs written at Motown, and thus worthy of mentioning. However, though both these songs were written for and originally recorded by Motown artists and songwriters, their most recognizable, charting versions are non-Motown covers, thus I disqualified them from the list.

1. “Money (That’s What I Want)” – originally recorded by Motown artist Barrett Strong
2. “Devil With The Blue Dress” – originally recorded by Motown artist Shorty Long

INTERESTING FACTS (a la wikipedia)

– This song is considered to be among the finest recordings of The Miracles, and it sold over one million records within two years.

– In the five-LP publication The Motown Story, by Motown Records, Smokey Robinson explained the origin of this song in these words: “Tracks of My Tears” was actually started by Marv Tarplin, who is a young cat who plays guitar for our act. So he had this musical thing – [sings melody] – you know, and we worked around with it, and worked around, and it became “Tracks of My Tears.” Miracle Marv Tarplin’s initial guitar licks at the songs’intro have become instantly recognizable worldwide.

– “The Tracks of My Tears” was a #2 hit on the Billboard magazine R&B singles chart, and it reached #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

– The 45 r.p.m. single also was a Top 10 hit in Great Britain, reaching #9 on the U.K. singles chart.

– In a 2006 poll for Britain’s Favorite Break-up Songs, a Network 5 TV program, “The Tracks of My Tears” was voted in sixteenth place.

– Cover Versions:

– Despite the plethora of covers recorded over the years, however, The Miracles’ original is still considered the definitive version.

– The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) ranked it at #127 in its list of the Songs of the Century – the 365 Greatest Songs of the 20th Century.

– Chosen by Rolling Stone Magazine as #50 in its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

– Chosen as one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

– Preserved by the United States Library of Congress into the National Recording Registry .

– Winner of “The Award Of Merit” from The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) for the song’s writers, Miracles members Pete Moore, Marv Tarplin, and Smokey Robinson.

– Chosen as #5 of the Top 10 Best Songs of All Time by a panel of 20 top industry songwriters and producers including Hal David, Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Jerry Leiber, and others as reported to Britain’s Mojo music magazine.

– “The Tracks of My Tears” was featured in the Vietnam War film Platoon in 1986, and it was also included in the soundtrack of the movie The Big Chill in 1983.

– On May 14, 2008, the song was selected for preservation by the United States Library of Congress as an “culturally, historically, and aesthetically significance” to the National Recording Registry.

– The track was produced by “Smokey” Robinson

– Other instrumentation on the track was provided by The Funk Brothers and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO, BABY!!).

VIDEO OF THE DAY