I hope you’re in the mood for a bit of soul music tonight, ’cause I bookmarked this one a week or so ago to play, and never got around to it.  Y’know … I’m amazed by how short my memory has become just in the past year, maybe less.  I came up with a song I wanted to play, thought I had never played it, only to find that I played it about two weeks ago!  Wouldn’t you think I could remember that far back?  Sigh.

Released on December 26, 1972 on Motown’s Soul Records, it became one of the biggest hit singles to date for Gladys Knight and the Pips, and was also the last single the group released prior to them leaving Motown for Buddah Records in February 1973.  They had been with Motown for six-and-a-half years, but according to Ms. Knight, she and the group were regarded as a second-string act and that “Diana (Ross) & The Supremes, The Temptations and Marvin Gaye were given all the hits, while we took the leftovers”.

On March 2, 1974, at the Grammy Awards ceremony, Gladys Knight & The Pips won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for Neither One of Us. Previously that same night, they had won their first Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for Midnight Train to Georgia.  In 1996, the group was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

I did not know that Gladys Knight made her singing debut at the age of 4, and three years later, she won a $2000 first prize singing Nat “King” Cole’s Too Young on Ted Mack’s Original Amateur Hour.  Pretty impressive, eh?

Neither One Of Us (Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye)
Gladys Knight

It’s sad to think
We’re not gonna make it
And it’s gotten to the point
Where we just can’t fake it

For some ungodly reason
Just won’t let it die
I guess neither one of us
Wants to be the first to say goodbye

I keep wondering
What I’m gonna do without you?
And I guess you must be
Wondering the same thing too

So we go on
Go on together living a lie
Because neither one of us
Wants to be the first to say goodbye

Every time I find the nerve
Every time I find the nerve to say, I’m leaving
Memories, those old memories
Get in my way

Lord knows it’s only me
Only know it’s only me that I’m deceiving
When it comes to saying goodbye
That a simple word that I just cannot say

There can be no way, there can be no way
This can have a happy ending, no, no
So we just go on hurting and pretending
And convincing ourselves to give it just one more try

Because neither one of us
Wants to be the first to say
Neither one of us
Wants to be the first to say
Neither one of us
Wants to be the first to say

Farewell my love
Goodbye

Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: James D. Weatherly
Neither One Of Us (Wants To Be The First To Say Goodbye) lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group