♫ Just My Imagination ♫ (Redux)

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I’ve been remiss this month in writing posts for Black History month, and in making Black History the focus of my music posts, as I meant to do, way back when I still had half of a mind!  So, for the few remaining days of February, I plan to play some of the best of the Best of Motown, starting with this one by the Temptations.  As I’m running late on everything today, this music post is a few hours late, but I hope you’ll enjoy it all the same.

Released in 1971, this was the last single for the Temptations with Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams in the group. Eddie started a solo career and in 1973 scored his biggest hit with Keep On Truckin’. Williams remained on salary as an advisor, but was plagued with personal problems – he was separated from his wife, owed back taxes and was being treated for alcoholism. He committed suicide in 1973 at age 34.

Motown writers Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong wrote Just My Imagination in the late ’60s, but since psychedelic songs were popular at the time, they decided to wait a few years before releasing it. Whitfield pulled it out of the mothballs after the relative failure of The Temptations’ Ungena Za Ulimwengu (Unite the World), which hit #33 in 1970 (unacceptable by their standards). Whitfield felt they needed to change direction to stay on top of the game, so he steered Temptations away from their string of socially relevant songs and had them record this airy ballad. The strategy worked, and the song rose to #1 in the U.S.

Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)
The Temptations

Each day through my window I watch her as she passes by
I say to myself you’re such a lucky guy,
To have a girl like her is truly a dream come true
out of all the fellows in the world she belongs to me.
But it was Just my imagination,
once again runnin’ away with me.
It was just my imagination runnin’ away with me. Oo
Soon we’ll be married and raise a family (Oh yeah)
A cozy little home out in the country with two children maybe three.

I tell you I can visualize it all
this couldn’t be a dream for too real it all seems;
But it was Just my imagination once again runnin’ way with me.
Tell you it was just my imagination runnin’ away with me.
Ev’ry night on my knees I pray Dear Lord, Hear my plea;
Don’t ever let another take her love from me or I would surely die.

Her love is heavenly, when her arms enfold me,
I hear a tender rhapsody; but in reality she doesn’t even know me.

Just my imagination once again runnin’ way with me.
Tell you it was just my imagination runnin’ away with me.
no, no, no, no, no, no, no, can’t forget her
Just my imagination once again runnin’ way with me.
Tell you it was just my imagination runnin’ away with me.

Songwriters: Barrett Strong / Norman Whitfield / Norman J. Whitfield
Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me) lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

29 thoughts on “♫ Just My Imagination ♫ (Redux)”

      • It is! Songs that I haven’t heard in years I can just wake up with going through my head. Our brains are strange! LOL! But you know music is something powerful, for when I worked with Alzheimer patients who couldn’t remember anything, they still remembered songs that they sang long ago. Every word!

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        • Yes, indeed, our brains are strange! There is a song that I despise … I love the tune, but hate the words, and don’t you know that song pops into my head at least once a week and has to be forced to leave! I have heard that about Alzheimer patients, that music stirred memories! And remember that old saying, “Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast”?

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