It's nice to finally find a heartfelt song that doesn't allow its production to overwhelm its sincerity.
Listen to those acoustic instruments. And listen to how few of them there are. I hear a piano, some strings, and maybe a little light horn here and there. There aren't even drums trying to force the song into a rock-and-roll mold it doesn't actually fit into. The effect is to emphasize the emotion of Newton-John's performance. It's remarkable what you can do when you just make something classic instead of trying to update it.
And she gives a good performance here. The song is about her admitting her love for someone else and being rejected, and her resigned sadness. And everything about her voice and the music communicates that sadness.
I don't really care for the title. There's something about the words "I honestly love you" that crosses the line into over-earnestness. It's the kind of thing that only gets said in super-intimate settings, when you've already thrown out "I love you" a bunch and need to say "no, really, I'm not just saying it, I honestly love you." And that's fine in that setting, but in this context it feels more like she's throwing it around just for emphasis rather than for the word's actual meaning. Might as well say "I literally love you."
My verdict: Like it. Frankly, I'm just happy to find a song that didn't sap away its emotional meaning with poor instrumental choices. Now I have an example to point to. But also it successfully communicates a feeling, which is the mark of successful art.
Both incarnations of this song have so many problems that I'm at a bit of a loss for where to even begin. I suppose the fundamental problem is the same: it's a a cowboy-sounding ballad with way too much going on in what could otherwise be a charmingly simple song.
Lawrence's version starts out okay, sounding like he's settled on a song that should be sung by a cowboy as his horse strolls down the dusty trail. But then for some reason the sound mix throws in a second track where he harmonizes with himself. And then a string section comes in, which makes it feel less like a cowboy sing-along and more like a cowboy movie. Which wouldn't be all bad, but I don't think the song is aiming for cowboy movie chic.
Osmond's version, oddly, maintains a lot of that same cowboy western sound. The horse-hoof clopping sound has been toned down a bit, but in its place is an unwelcome backup chorus, and a much larger backing orchestra. And Osmond's vocals are unrefined. When he reaches for those upper notes, you can hear him straining. I suppose that's why they added the backup chorus, so he wouldn't have to do quite so much.
The lyrics bug me, but for different reasons. The song is about the singer feeling tempted by the "little girl," but not wanting to be unfaithful to the relationship he's in. And so he begs her to "go away." "You're much too hard to resist," he says. He's not quite blaming her for his attraction to her, but it's close enough to make me uncomfortable.
And then we have the diminutive "little girl" problem. Steve, if that girl is so "little," you probably shouldn't be tempted by her in the first place. Either she's a woman and the issue with your attraction is that you're seeing someone else, or she's underage and that's the problem with your attraction.
That's less of a problem for Osmond, who is about 14 here, but sounds like he's all of 10. "Little Girl" is a bit more appropriate when sung by a little boy. But then the rest of the lyrics start to seem inappropriate. "I know that your lips are sweet." You do? How do you know that? "When you're near me like this you're much too hard to resist." That's an understandable line coming from a grown man, but from a boy it sounds like he's repeating something he heard without knowing what it means. And I suppose that feeling is enhanced by the fact that he's doing a cover.
My verdict: Don't like it. I don't like either one, but Steve Lawrence's version is better. Donny Osmond's voice just isn't ready yet for this. He did mature into a much better performer eventually, though.
"We both are so excited 'cause we're reunited." Okay, go back and write a song that actually communicates excitement. This one communicates, at best, quiet self-satisfaction.
Once again, we have a bunch of instruments involved in creating a really quiet song, so there is neither emotional spareness nor energetic fullness. The instruments that are here seem to be really cheaply produced, possibly simulated. Take out the drums and explore the emotional sincerity of your song.
Vocally, the song's not much better to listen to. Herb is a pretty mediocre singer, and he doesn't carry his solo sections very well. Peaches does better, and I don't mind her voice at all. But together, they just don't harmonize very well. "There's one perfect fit and sugar this one is it." Your voices don't fit together at all. Your voices need to be reunited.
The lyrics feel really lazily written. There's no poetry here, just a bunch of words that rhyme. "I spent the evening with the radio. Regret the moment that I let you go." "Spent the evening with the radio" isn't an idiom, and it's kind of half a metaphor at best. And to fit the sentence structure, it should be "I regret the moment," but of course that doesn't fit the meter. Also, I don't really like the sentiment. Relationship songs are usually about angst, or contentment, but this one is just kind of smugly satisfied.
Oh, strummy acoustic nothing songs, how I loathe you.
The bulk of this song is 2 chords from an acoustic guitar. Both the verses and the choruses just alternate from one chord to the other before switching back. There are also some transitions that employ a couple other chords very briefly, but other than technically adding more chords to the song they don't add anything resembling variety to the music.
And there's little else going on to listen to here. There's another guitar noodling away vaguely way in the background, and a lonely maraca on percussion. And there's the vocal harmony, but this isn't exactly Boyz II Men here. The Eagles's voices here are fine, but not particularly remarkable.
And this is where the strummy acoustic guitar song fails for me. There's no interesting sound here. There's no tension building up for release, no energy. There's not even any variety to keep the song compelling. Conversely, they can't commit to the spare, heartfelt song of one person with one guitar, instead adding sound and voices all over the place. So with the music a complete failure, that must mean the lyrics are interesting, right?
I'm not going to pretend the lyrics are terrible, because they're not. But they're not exactly great, either. There aren't any clever turns of phrase or interesting things to say. The singer's had a fight with his significant other and can't quite find the right words to make it right. "We try to talk it over, but the words come out too rough." It's an apology song, an attempt to rise above the specific issues at hand and try to save the relationship because "here in my heart, I give you the best of my love." Mostly I don't have a problem with the lyrics, but I do find the chorus to be pretty generic. "Ooooh, sweet darlin'. You get the best of my love." "Sweet darlin'" isn't exactly an original affectionate, there. And gee, maybe if the relationship is in this much peril, your "sweet darlin'" might actually be getting the worst of your love.
My verdict: Don't like it. A song needs to have either interesting music or interesting lyrics, preferably both. This one has mediocre lyrics and almost no music, so it's no good.
Not every song that is slow, quiet, and gentle is bad. Here's a song that is at least soothing and pleasant to listen to. Unfortunately, it's also extraordinarily low on energy, and I'm not entirely convinced the sound matches its lyrics entirely appropriately.
I could see a song that sounded like this being a sweet little love song. There are parts of it, especially in the verses, that feel like a stroll with your sweetheart on a nice day. But that's not what this song is about, because the singer turns out to be imagining the whole thing. The music doesn't really match that, because the music isn't really sad at all. It's just soft. I'm not going to go too hard on the song for the singer building this whole relationship around this woman who is walking by, because he does repeatedly acknowledge the reality of the situation, with both the song's title and the line "in reality she doesn't even know me."
The vocal harmonies in this song are, of course, excellent. But the music is too much like the rest of the 70s, with huge string sections attached to very slight and inconsequential percussion. I don't think strings are a bad match for the song, but there's too much of them here. And the horns in the bridge are really misplaced, sounding like they came from some epic stage musical, rather than the inconsequential musings of a man sitting alone with his imagination.
My verdict: Don't like it. The only thing this song seems good for is wallowing in self-pity over failed relationships. There's value in that, but it's not a great song from outside that context.
Hoo boy. If there's one good thing that could be said about Chicago in the 80s, it's that they had at least mastered the cheesy power ballad, with strong synthesizer chords that were appealing, if hollow. But this song can't even rise to that level.
The sound in this song is so hollow, so soft, so inconsequential, and so lethargic, I can't imagine how it managed to share radio space with "Rock'n Me" (#408). You have Peter Cetera's high-pitched and insincere voice, the lightest guitar I've heard in a while, a tiny maraca sound, and some low strings and soft horns. And that's it. There no energy behind this song and no emotional sincerity. I don't mind an emotional song, but I don't get the sincere vibe a song like this needs to pull off.
Lyrically, it's similarly hollow. "A love like ours is a love that's hard to find. How could we let it slip away?" There's a lot of time spent in this song telling us that the singer thinks this is a special relationship that shouldn't be allowed to end the way it's ending, but I don't feel persuaded. "If you leave me now, you'll take away the biggest part of me." It just feels whiny, rather than persuasive. A lot of that may have to do with Cetera's vocal delivery, but the lyrics are just as much to blame.
My verdict: Don't like it. It's not a great song, but it's a terrible performance. Boyz II Men did a version of it in 2009 that is what this song should have sounded like.
The love theme from what movie? Oh. No movie. Just Love's theme. Which seems like it's far too generic an idea to inspire a good song. And, as it turns out, that's entirely true.
Barry White wrote this song, but left out his voice and wrote an instrumental piece. I already complained about one Barry White song not having a full enough sound when he wasn't singing, so an entire song where Barry White doesn't sing is very disappointing. There is more bass here than last time, to compensate, but the song still feels like it's missing something. I don't need lyrics, but maybe some non-verbal vocal exercises could have added some interest to this song.
I also don't appreciate the mix of orchestra and 70s wah-wah guitar. I'll try not to hold the general overuse of strings in 70s pop music against this song. But I can't help feel that somebody wrote a pleasant little string orchestra piece and then ruined it with a cheap little wah-wah guitar and synthesized bass undercurrent. There's not really a well-featured instrument, either, so it just ends up feeling like somebody forgot to record the lyrics.
Oh, I take it back. The lyrics don't make this song better. Yikes.
My verdict: Don't like it. I'm not opposed to the idea of a disco instrumental, but this one didn't work out.
Pop music history is riddled with songs that took a distinctive, attention-grabbing introduction, and used it to lead into a bland, ordinary, unexciting song. I'm happy to say this is not one of them, because this song manages to live up to the promise of that unique calliope opening.
The bass and sax throughline in this song is wonderfully distinctive and remarkable on its own, and when put together with the calliope make for an unmistakable and appealing song. I also enjoy how the chorus builds into a bit of choas before gathering itself together and pushing back to the calliope. It's hard to believe any pop music sound could be cohesive with an opening that sounds like it came from the circus, but this song pulls it off. I'm not surprised to learn the music was written by Stevie Wonder, because I'm starting to realize he's one of the great music writers of the 70s.
And Smokey Robinson deserves no small credit for writing lyrics that match the music's tone so well. He took that circus theme and ran with it, writing a song about a person who has a happy face metaphorically painted on, even though he's sad about a breakup. "Smiling in the public eye, but in my lonely room I cry." The sad tone of the lyrics contrast with the happy way Robinson sings them, in a way that is perfectly paired with the whole "Tears of a Clown" concept. Like the words suggest, the song isn't as happy as it might seem at first.
My verdict: Like it. This is a well-crafted and well-performed song. I just wish I could have found a cleaner mix to share, because the only thing that could improve it is a fuller bass line.
I'm not a country boy, but I find myself charmed by this song anyway. There's a plain and simple joy present in both the writing and performance of this song that can't be denied. I think the live recording energizes it, so it was a good choice to release this recording as the single.
I really like the music here. It's basic guitar, violin, and string bass country music. Most of the percussion sounds like it comes from hand claps and foot stomps. The vocal harmonies are well-done. I enjoy the simplicity of this. That's unusual for most of the 70s music I've reviewed, where music simplicity seems to not be allowed.
The lyrics are about a country boy who is happy about his life, and his joy is infectious. "I got me a fine wife, I got my old fiddle. When the sun's coming up, I got cakes on the griddle." Sounds like a great morning to me. I like that he loves all the things that make his life good. I really like that he doesn't feel too much need to compare his life to other people and claim his way is superior. Yeah, there are a couple lines that get close to that, but for the most part it's all about how happy he is to have a family, a farm, a fiddle, and his life in general. It's not a list of things he wants or doesn't want. He aspires to nothing more than to be happy with his life the way it is, and that's appealing.
My verdict: Like it. It's catchy and fun and positive. What's not to like?
Here's a great example of a talented singer elevating a song far beyond what the music deserves. This song is full of many of the terrible hallmarks of 70s pop music, but I don't mind because Barry White is awesome.
I'm sure I don't have to extoll the virtues of White's voice. It's what he's famous for. He's universally admired for his bass voice. His voice was a plot point in an episode of The Simpsons. The talking parts are very well done, and their duration is about perfect because just as you feel you're about to get tired of them, the singing part of the song starts, and honestly I think that's the part I like more.
Musically, the song has that 70s problem where even though there are plenty of instruments, the overall sound doesn't manage to be very full. I understand that White's voice is taking up most of the bass range, but when he stops to breathe the bottom sort of falls out of the song. Without him, the music feels light and weightless. I don't care for the use of horns at all, as usual, although I suppose I do like the strings. There's something about the smoothness of the sound they provide, as compared to, say, a guitar, that works here.
The lyrics are a passionate love song, full of an emotion that is intense, but never regrettable. "Your love for me is all I need and more than I can stand." He's actually made uncomfortable by his desire for this woman, but he's not upset by it, because he knows exactly what he needs. Even the title implies this passionate intensity. "Can't get enough of your love." No matter how much love he gets, he wants more and more. There's a place in any romance for this kind of intensity once in a while.
My verdict: Like it. It's nice to see an artist whose only No. 1 is also their signature song.
I'm a little lost on the intended interpretation of this song. The first verse sounds like this woman is sitting her significant other down and telling him she's dumping him for another man. But by the second verse she sounds like she's remembering the good times with Guy #1, and then she follows up with "With everything I feel inside, I'm asking you to stay." So possibly she's changed her mind and decided to drop Guy #2 for Guy #1. So she cheated, and now she's being wishy-washy and indecisive.
However, the other possible interpretation, and one that almost makes more sense to me, is that she's informing Guy #1 that she wants to be in an open relationship, and she wants to be with both of them. "He knows he can't possess me and he knows he never will. There's just this empty place inside of me that only he can fill." That sounds like a present-tense fact. "Loving both of you is breaking all the rules." Clearly loving both of them is exactly what she wants to do, and the only questions are whether she's willing to break the social rules and whether she can convince them to go for it. I guess a woman knowing what she wants is empowering. Unfortunately, while the open relationship idea is an interesting one to explore, I tend to think she's just wishy-washy.
Mostly I think she's wishy-washy because of the music. It's gentle music to break bad news by. It's not assertive or challenging to social norms. It's just by-the-numbers acoustic strumming, with a little light piano and super-light percussion to back it. I just noticed there are strings way in the background, too. As is all too common in the 70s, there are a lot of instruments here making very little sound.
Mary MacGregor is an okay singer, I guess. She has that very gentle vocal quality that was so common in the 70s. She doesn't express the emotional depth that Karen Carpenter does, but she also manages sincerity to a degree that Barbra Streisand can't manage. She's fine, I just wish she had better song selection.
My verdict: Don't like it. I suppose I have to give the lyrics credit for making me think about them a little. But the bland, bland music just can't carry the song, and MacGregor doesn't sufficiently elevate it.
I think it's really odd that this song is credited to John Lennon "with the Plastic Ono Band," when it's clearly a duet with Elton John. I spent a bit of time trying to find the correct version of this song, convinced I'd stumbled onto a later collaborative cover. But no, this really is the song that charted. And it's not like this was before Elton John was famous. Both "Benny and the Jets" (#323) and "Crocodile Rock" (#289) had topped the charts already.
Well, whatever the reason for it, I'm glad this collaboration exists. The track opens with Lennon and John laughing, and not only does it sound natural and spontaneous, like the mixer captured a spare take and threw it in to the recording, but it also sets the mood. This is a light and fun song.
I really like the instrument choices. The jazz piano and handclap percussion propel the song forward with a compelling momentum. The guitar fills out the sound and gives the song an intense energy. And of course the saxophone in the lead is spectacular. The saxophone player is long-time session musician Bobby Keys, and even though I'm not sure I can say I know his work, I'm already a fan based on his intense, wild, but clean performance here.
There aren't a lot of lyrics. I guess Lennon liked the phrase "Whatever gets you through the night" and wrote a bit of a stream-of-consciousness song around it. I can't say I really get the meaning, but that's fine.
If there's one drawback to the song it's that it's just a little bit repetitive. It's mitigated by a lot of things, like the variety of performance in both the singing and the saxophone. And the occasional halts work great to break up the song and keep it from feeling like a constant droning train ride to nowhere. But it can get a little droning at times.
My verdict: Like it. I think the flaws are more than made up for by the splendid use of all the talent involved and the careful steps taken to mitigate the repetition.
Finally, finally I've found a Bee Gees song that is pure, unmitigated disco fun. I don't know why it is, but for some reason I've really come around on disco and come to appreciate it as fun dance music. Maybe it's the misery of 70s pop music. Maybe it's the misery of 2000s dance music. Genuine 70s disco just seems fun in comparison, and this is a perfectly nice, fun dance song.
It helps that the lyrics aren't what I've come to know as the usual Bee Gees misery-wallowing. The lyrics are, primarily, "you should be dancing." The rest of the lyrics are about how he's in a relationship with a woman who likes to dance and tells him he should dance, too. Ordinarily I'd find this kind of repetition irritating, but in this case I find it refreshingly minimalist.
It helps that the song actually contains a surprising amount of variety. It has verses, choruses, and transitions between them. It has an instrumental bridge that gives an electric guitar and the horns a chance to shine. Then it has a section where most of the instruments fall away but the percussion gets to come to the front. The orchestration in this song is really quite good, and the variety of sounds and sections keep it entertaining for its entire length. An impressive feat considering the repetitive lyrics and the need for a dance song to keep a consistent sound going throughout.
My verdict: Like it. Disco may have been rejected by everyone after the 70s were over, but it was a genre of music that really did include some gems. This is surely one of them.
Technically the artist for this song is credited as "The Partridge Family Starring Shirley Jones Featuring David Cassidy." Wikipedia says it's because they were the only actual people from the Partridge Family who recorded the song.
The thing about this song that is the most striking is the minor chords used in its verses. It's kind of an unsettling and odd thing to hear in a pop song. But it is well done. The tension that they create is resolved in the chorus, and it gives the song a unique sound. It's attention-getting.
The orchestration seems a bit mired in a very safe interpretation of the music of the late 60s. By which I mostly mean that maddening tambourine. The harpsichord-sounding keyboards are also kind of bland, and I don't care for the keyboard solo in the middle at all. I do really like the bass line, though. The bass line and Cassidy's lead vocals are probably the most appealing parts of this song.
Cassidy's performance conveys a pained intensity, which is very appropriate for the lyrics. The lyrics have the singer proclaiming that he's in love with someone, and he's not entirely happy about it. "Screaming out the words I dread, 'I think I love you'." And the rest of the song helpfully attempts to explain why he's unhappy about it. "So what am I so afraid of? I'm afraid that I'm not sure of a love there is no cure for." It's an interesting take on the process of falling love, being afraid that it's not reciprocated, being afraid that you can't undo it without a lot of pain. And by the end, he's sort of come to terms with it, saying "I only want to make you happy," and "I ought to stay around and love you." It's a neat exploration of an idea, and both the vocal performance and the music are appropriate to convey the complexity of the feelings involved.
My verdict: Like it. It's surprisingly deep and complex for a song that was made primarily to promote a TV series about a singing family.
Before I started this blog, I really didn't care one way or the other about Barbra Streisand. But now I think she's awful. She puts all this emotion into her singing, and every bit of it sounds forced and fake and about as insincere as a singer can. Happily, this is the last time we'll be seeing her here as this is her last No. 1 song on the list.
The music in this song isn't bad. It's from the movie A Star is Born, and the intent is clearly to make a simple, timeless, elegant song for a movie. And on that level, it's a success. I don't usually stand for this much use of strings in pop music, but this really movie music, so it works here. The piano is nice, the light strummy guitar works, and the tropes of pop music are kept out, unlike what happened to "The Way We Were" (#317) . So kudos to whoever composed it, which was... Streisand herself, actually. Well, clearly she has a talent for something, anyway.
So it's up to her to ruin the song with her voice, and clearly she's up to that task. I just hate her voice so much. She takes huge breaths before she belts anything out, over-enunciates the "w" sound on "one," and can't handle any of the pitch-shifting that's required in the song on the word "Evergreen." And as usual, she's investing every syllable with way too much insincere emotion, making sure any genuine emotion remains unexpressed.
"Love soft as an easy chair." No. That's awful. Off to simile school with you. "One love that is shared by two." Yes, that's generally how love works. Two people, two loves doesn't usually work out that well. "Like a rose under the April snow, I was always certain love will grow." So you were like a rose under snow? Because that's what your misplaced modifier says. And when the lyrics aren't stupid, they're generic and meaningless, so I think I'll stop there, before my head explodes.
My verdict: Don't like it. This song won both an Oscar and a Grammy, providing further evidence for the irrelevance of both awards.
I've probably declared a great many songs overproduced. "Make it simpler." Fewer instruments, fewer unnecessary background elements. It might give people the impression that I'd rather see every singer backed by a simple guitar, or piano, or jazz band. And yet here's a song that could benefit from just a little bit more production.
Al Green is a very talented singer, and I certainly wouldn't want to suggest that anything be done that would obscure his voice. I like some of the very delicate touches in his voice. It makes the song feel intimate. Given the subject matter, that's certainly the intent.
But an intimate song is better if it's more intense, and intensity is what this song lacks. There's not enough energy, especially in the first half of the song. The first verse is so quiet and slow that my mind wanders. It's only around the time the song gets to the verse that the energy and intensity reaches what I think is an appropriate level. The bass gets more pronounced, the brass fanfares kick in, the backup singers join in, and the song finally generates some of the emotional energy that I want it to have. But then, just when I think the song is about to reach a good level, it's over. It's like one long buildup that never got around to the payoff.
I actually really like the lyrics. It's a song about commitment to a relationship. "Loving you whether times are good or bad, happy or sad." There's no drama or despair or pain, just happy people in a happy relationship realizing how lucky they are and wanting to stay that way. On top of that, it has some of that poetry of words that just sound good together.
My verdict: Don't like it. There's certainly nothing wrong with this song, but I'm just frustrated by its lack of intensity. It seems like it just needs a little proper mixing, or a good live performance, but I can't quite find one that gets what I'm looking for.
So once again we find the same song on the charts twice. But which version is better?
Patti Labelle is one of the true talents of popular music, to be sure, and this song is an excellent showcase for her talent as the lead singer of the group with her name. Her bold voice grabs your attention even as she sings a whole lot of nonsense. Her backing singers are also very good, keeping the song's base vocals going along while Labelle elaborates.
The music is very engaging, as well. The bass and drum lines in particular are excellent. I also like the synthesized organ all right. It's surreal sound creates a sort of heightened reality that seems appropriate for a song with this much fun lyrical nonsense. The brass section is all right, but it sounds small, and cheap. In fact, a lot of my impression of the music in this song is that it's not living up to the larger-than-life effort Patti Labelle is putting into it.
The lyrics in this version are pretty cleverly written. It's the story of a man who meets a woman, Lady Marmalade, in New Orleans. It's likely, but I guess not certain, that she's a prostitute. Anyway, she rocks his world, and he remembers their night together forever afterward. Then there's a lot of nonsense like "gitchi gitchi ya ya da da," which almost seems like it's only there to serve as cover for them to slip in the part that was the most controversial, and easily the most famous part of the song, "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi (ce soi)," which is French for "Do you want to go to bed with me (tonight)?" Such is the song's lasting cultural impact that I've heard many people claim this is the only French they know.
At any rate, the song comes off fairly feminist, at least for the 70s. A woman asserts control of her sexuality in a way that a man is totally unprepared for. Potential prostitution aside, it's practically a declaration of sexual independence.
Which is probably why it got picked up as the song to be remade to promote the 2001 movie Moulin Rouge. And it's hard for the original to compete with this remake, because it's impossible to avoid noticing that the remake has a much, much larger production budget, and it's put to good use.
For one thing, as great as Patti Labelle is, it's hard for her to compete with the sheer amount of talent present here. Christina Aguilera and Pink have several other No. 1 hits and are surely some the greatest vocal talents of the 2000s. Mya is also a very talented singer, although she may not have quite the same resume as those two. And I don't know a lot about Lil' Kim's other work, but I like how she was used here.
The remake's production is clearly guided by the philosophy that bigger is better, which is definitely true for this song. It's a bold song, and the bolder the better. What's bolder than getting three of the most talented singers of the time, adding a rap verse, updating the quality of the synthesized instrumentation, and extending the song just enough to make it bigger without wearing out its welcome?
And they managed to keep the feminist theme intact. They got a woman to do the rap verse, which includes lines like "we independent women, some mistake us for whores." That one line manages to updates the feminism by suggesting that Lady Marmalade isn't a prostitute, she's just a woman who knows what she wants and goes after it.
My verdict: Like it. I like both versions. But I have to give the edge to the 2001 remake. I just like the additional bigness, and the interesting variety of the different singers' voices.
I couldn't find any embeddable versions of the original recording, so I embedded that live performance instead. If anything, I think the song is improved by the simpler orchestration and raw energy of the live performance.
Not that there's a lot wrong with the studio recording. At its core, this is a bouncy guitar, bass, drum and piano tune, and it's a lot of fun. I like the bass breakdown near the bridge. It has a very jazz-like string bass feel to it. The jaunty piano has a bit of a ragtime feel to it. And the guitar feels like a blues song. All of that combined with the lyrics left me with the impression that the song was about a gangster in 1930s Chicago. But I guess that's not accurate.
As far as I can tell, that interpretation wasn't intentional. Leroy Brown was supposed to be a contemporary character, who was known for being the big, mean guy who pushed people around to get what he wanted. It's a well-paced story. It sets up Leroy as tough, describes how intimidating a character he is, and then tells the story of his comeuppance at the hands of someone bigger and meaner than he is. It's a good story, and I can't really find any fault with the lyrics to pick at.
I think the recording is a bit overproduced, though. There's too much unnecessary use of background singers. This should just be simply performed by a small group, like in the live performance, rather than by a massive chorus. I actually kind of like some of the background shouts that make the song feel like it's being performed in a music hall to a tough, indifferent crowd. But the chorus singing along contradicts that and makes it feel like it's being recorded in a studio.
My verdict: Like it. Overall, I think the overproduction issues are pretty minor, and don't disrupt the fun.
It took Steve Miller a while to win me over last time. There will be no such adjustment here. This song is just plain simple fun.
What I enjoy most about this song is the guitars. Both the lead and bass guitars do a great job of shining with their own bits during the intro and again during the bridge. This song contains truly great solos for both lead guitar and bass. But the thing I love most is during the vocals, when the guitars are creating these pulses that drive the song forward. It's a small thing that isn't very showy, but it's vitally important. That pulsing guitar during the verses give this song a remarkable amount of energy and intensity. Before I leave the music, I think it's important to also note that the drums aren't just here, they're also building the energy, and adding just enough variety at key points to get your attention any time the song risks becoming repetitive.
I'm not entirely sure about the meaning of the lyrics, other than that he's traveling around and wants to be with his lady. I kind of enjoy the poetry of the words more than their meaning. When he says he traveled to "Philadelphia, Atlanta, L.A." I enjoy the way those words all sound together, even if there's no particular lyrical significance to those three cities. I do think it's a little weird that he goes from L.A. to "Northern California where the girls are warm." From what I understand, the weather in Northern California is a bit more like Tacoma than L.A. I'm not sure folks in Northern California are known for being particularly warm. But I still like the poetry and clever near-rhyme of that line.
My verdict: Like it. What's left to say. This is a song that is pretty much just that visceral kind of fun that defies description, and it's pretty easy to sing along to, which is important in a song like that.
The chorus of this song is classic, to be sure. It gets played in contexts both artistic and commercial, sincere and ironic, basic and bizarre. And it's a strong chorus. But the rest of the song doesn't necessarily hold up.
The song's biggest strength is Gaye's vocals. He's a great singer, and the chorus in particular shows off his skill. He's putting on a performance, and it's great. I want to listen to him sing. I like the way his voice alternates between power and gentleness, it's ideal for the song's lyrical context.
The lyrics, I assume, don't need much explanation. It's an invitation to sex. At first glance, it seems like it's an invitation to sex between partners who are already well in love. But there are occasional lines, such as "C'mon darling, stop beatin' 'round the bush," that feel a little more like pressure. Like he's just saying these things to get sex. Ultimately, I'm going to be charitable and assume he really is in love and just wants to take the relationship to the next level, but when you're writing a song like this, it's kind of important to make the lyrics absolutely immune to misinterpretation.
Musically, the song is pretty boring. Yes, the point is to showcase his voice, but the music doesn't seem to try to do very much except create the most basic backing track. The drums don't change much, the bass line has little variation, and even the lead twangy guitar doesn't do very much beyond the chorus. Then in the middle there's a mismash of saxophones, strings, and randomness. There aren't so much verses as freeform jazz between choruses. And it goes on and on for 5 minutes. It's not bad, to be sure, but it's also a little bit boring after a while.
My verdict: Don't like it. It's not a well-constructed pop song. Though I can see it being appealing in its intended context, if you take my meaning.
