Tag Archives: Motown

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Song of the Day #345: ‘Please Mr. Postman’ – The Marvelettes

marvelLike a lot of people, I’m sure, my first exposure to ‘Please Mr. Postman’ was through The Beatles’ excellent cover version on their 1963 album With the Beatles. It’s one of John Lennon’s best early vocal performances (check it out here).

In fact, I couldn’t have told you that a group called The Marvelettes performed the original version of this song — not before I found it on a Web site just the other day. And I certainly didn’t know that The Marvelettes’ ‘Please Mr. Postman,’ released in 1961, was the very first #1 hit for Motown Records in the U.S.

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Song of the Day #339: ‘Baby Love’ – The Supremes

babyloveOne thing these Songs of the Day have made crystal clear to me over the past year is that my CD collection is woefully incomplete. This is my 10th Motown song since I started the Motown Weekends and I don’t own any of them. These are some of the best songs ever recorded and they haven’t found a spot on my shelf.

In large part, that’s because many of these songs were released in the days when the attention was on singles rather than albums. So averse as I am to greatest hits collections and other compilations, it’s tough to get all the good stuff without spending a fortune. But it’s probably high time I just got over that hangup and spent some time on iTunes assembling a kickass Motown playlist.

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Song of the Day #338: ‘ABC’ – The Jackson 5

michaelWhile the news of Michael Jackson’s death was certainly surprising, it didn’t have a very strong emotional impact on me. That’s not to diminish his contribution to both music and pop culture (or his equally significant bridging of the racial divide in both). On the contrary, I hold his talent in the highest regard and my childhood is wrapped up in memories of ‘Thriller,’ ‘Beat It’ and ‘Billy Jean.’

I even saw him in concert on the Victory tour in 1984, sitting in the nosebleed seats at the Orange Bowl, my view obstructed by a metal pole. I don’t remember the show but I remember the experience.

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Song of the Day #332: ‘What’s Going On’ – Marvin Gaye

marvingayeOne of my musical pet peeves is songs about current events, particularly protest songs. Even worse are songs that name-drop political figures.

A classic example, in an otherwise good song, is this verse from Sting’s ‘They Dance Alone’:

Hey Mr. Pinochet
You’ve sown a bitter crop
It’s foreign money that supports you
One day the money’s going to stop

Hey Sting… spare me.

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Song of the Day #331: ‘My Girl’ – The Temptations

temptationsThere was a time, prior to 1964, when ‘My Girl’ didn’t exist. That collection of notes, arranged in that order… it hadn’t been thought of yet. Or if it had, it hadn’t been recorded either on paper or tape. And then Smokey Robinson sat down and pieced it all together into the song we all know and love.

I’m often baffled by the thought that there must be a finite set of melodies out there, and it seems to me that the world’s songwriters should have used them up by now. I mean, how many notes are there in the scale? 12? And how many different ways can they be arranged to form a melody? OK, that’s a huge number. But how many of those sound like something other than noise? Probably a much smaller number.

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