♫ I Heard It Through The Grapevine ♫ (Redux)

Posted on December 15, 2022 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, History, music

Marvin Gaye. Motown. Sigh … they just don’t make it like that anymore, my friends. I just played this one in April 2021, and I try to put at least the space of 2 years between playing a song, but this one came up in conversation a few nights ago, and … well, it kind of got stuck in my head (along with the cotton that seems to fill the empty spaces of late). Last time I played it, our friend Clive suggested I listen to the 11+ minute version by Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR). I’m not typically a fan of really long songs, my attention span seems to be between 3-4 minutes, but surprisingly I listened to the entire thing and liked it! So, this year I am adding the CCR version to my lineup! It’s long, but well worth the time spent to listen.

This song was written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong for Motown Records in 1966. Strong first came up with the idea and asked the famous Motown songwriters Holland-Dozier-Holland to work on it with them, but the team refused to credit another writer (egos, egos everywhere), so Whitfield and Strong it was.

The first recording of the song to be released was produced by Whitfield for Gladys Knight & the Pips and released as a single in September 1967 when it went to number two in the Billboard chart. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles were the first to record the song, but theirs wouldn’t be released until years later on an album called Special Occasion. The Isley Brothers then took a crack at it, but their version wasn’t released. Whitfield and Strong then had Marvin Gaye record the song but still no luck: Motown head Berry Gordy chose Holland-Dozier-Holland’s Your Unchanging Love over Grapevine as his next single. Finally, a new Motown act Gladys Knight and the Pips recorded the song as a gospel rocker. Their version was a hit, entering the Top 40 in November 1967 and going to #2 in the U.S.

The Marvin Gaye version was placed on his 1968 album In the Groove, where it gained the attention of radio disc jockeys, and Motown founder Berry Gordy finally agreed to its release as a single in October 1968, when it went to the top of the Billboard Pop Singles chart for seven weeks from December 1968 to January 1969 and became for a time the biggest hit single on the Motown label.

Mavin Gaye’s version is, and will likely always be, my favourite, but Gladys Knight’s stands out as well, so I have included it here, along with the aforementioned CCR version.

I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Marvin Gaye

Ooh, I bet you’re wonderin’ how I knew
‘Bout your plans to make me blue
With some other guy you knew before
Between the two of us guys you know I love you more
It took me by surprise I must say
When I found out yesterday
Don’tcha know that I

Heard it through the grapevine
Not much longer would you be mine
Oh I heard it through the grapevine
Oh I’m just about to lose my mind
Honey, honey yeah
(Heard it through the grapevine)
(Not much longer would you be my baby, ooh, ooh, ooh)

I know a man ain’t supposed to cry
But these tears I can’t hold inside
Losin’ you would end my life you see
‘Cause you mean that much to me
You could have told me yourself
That you love someone else
Instead I

Heard it through the grapevine
Not much longer would you be mine
Oh I heard it through the grapevine
And I’m just about to lose my mind
Honey, honey yeah
(Heard it through the grapevine)
(Not much longer would you be my baby, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh)

People say believe half of what you see, son
And none of what you hear
But I can’t help bein’ confused
If it’s true please tell me dear
Do you plan to let me go
For the other guy you loved before?
Don’tcha know I

Heard it through the grapevine
Not much longer would you be mine
Baby I heard it through the grapevine
Ooh I’m just about to lose my mind
Honey, honey yeah
(Heard it through the grapevine)
(Not much longer would you be my baby, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah)

Honey, honey, I know
That you’re lettin’ me go
Said, I heard it through the grapevine
Heard it through the grapevine

Songwriters: Barrett Strong / Norman Whitfield
I Heard It Through the Grapevine (American Tour Live) lyrics © Stone Agate Music, Emi Music Publishing France, Jobete Music Co Inc, Stone Agate Music Corp

♫ The Way We Were/Try To Remember ♫

Posted on July 3, 2021 by jilldennison under music

This song is actually a compilation of two songs, The Way We Were, originally sung by Barbra Streisand, and Try To Remember, originally sung by just about everybody, including Gladys Knight. This is a redux, last played here a couple of years ago, but it is a beautiful piece of music and well worth hearing again. Besides which, last time I played it, I gave you no accompanying trivia, for it was one of those nights when I was too exhausted to do anything more than post the song & lyrics. I shall try to do better tonight!

This song was penned by the Texan writing team of Tom Jones (no, not that Tom Jones) and Harvey Schmidt for the 1960 musical comedy The Fantasticks, where it was originally sung by Jerry Orbach. The show was an off-Broadway production with a minuscule cast. It ran for 42 years, clocking up 17,162 performances, and became the world’s longest-running musical.

The only time Try to Remember reached the US Top 40 was in 1975 when Gladys Knight and The Pips recorded a medley of this song and Barbra Streisand’s The Way We Were. It also peaked at #4 in the UK.

Okay, so I didn’t give you much trivia, but that was all I could find! Anyway, I hope you enjoy the music …

The Way We Were – Try To Remember
Gladys Knight

Memories light the corners of my mind
Misty water-colored memories of the way we were
Scattered pictures of the smiles we left behind
Smiles we gave to one another for the way we were

Can it be that it was all so simple then
Or has time rewritten every line
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we?
Could we?

Memories may be beautiful and yet
What’s too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget
So it’s the laughter we will remember
Whenever we remember
The way we were
The way we were

Songwriters: Alan Bergman / Marilyn Bergman / Marvin Hamlisch
The Way We Were – Try To Remember lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

♫ I Heard It Through The Grapevine ♫

Posted on April 19, 2021 by jilldennison under music

Marvin Gaye. Motown. Sigh … they just don’t make it like that anymore, my friends. In some ways, this is a redux, for I did play it here three years ago, but I have added some trivia and two additional versions (Glady’s Knight and the Pips, and Smokey Robinson) to the post.

The Marvin Gaye version was placed on his 1968 album In the Groove, where it gained the attention of radio disc jockeys, and Motown founder Berry Gordy finally agreed to its release as a single in October 1968, when it went to the top of the Billboard Pop Singles chart for seven weeks from December 1968 to January 1969 and became for a time the biggest hit single on the Motown label.

Mavin Gaye’s version is, and will likely always be, my favourite, but Gladys Knight and Smokey Robinson certainly deserve honourable mention, so I have included them here.

I Heard It Through the Grapevine
Marvin Gaye

Honey, honey, I know
That you’re lettin’ me go
Said, I heard it through the grapevine
Heard it through the grapevine

♫ Neither One Of Us ♫

Posted on December 30, 2020 by jilldennison under music

Now, typically I get a song in my head, check to see if I have played it here before and if so, when. If it has been played in the past 12 months, I won’t re-play it, but will move on and find another. Every now and then, though, I make an exception to that rule (I can do that, ’cause it’s my blog so I can break my own rules, just not too often). The reason for this one tonight is that last night I played another by Gladys Knight, “Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me”, and in the comments, my dear friend David mentioned that if I had played this one, he would “still be relaxed all over the floor”. Well, since I thought that would be a fun thing to see, I decided to play this one, but then discovered I played it back in May of this year. Oh well … rules are meant to be broken, so sit back and enjoy! ( I did make one change from May’s version, and changed to a different video)

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

♫ Midnight Train To Georgia ♫ (Redux)

Posted on September 15, 2020 by jilldennison under music

This song, written and first recorded by Jim Weatherly, was originally titled Midnight Plane to Houston. Who knew? I’ll let Mr. Weatherly tell you the story …

“The song actually came about after a phone call I had with Farrah Fawcett. Lee Majors was a friend of mine. We’d played in the Flag Football League together in L.A. He had just started dating Farrah. One day I called Lee and Farrah answered the phone. We were just talking and she said she was packing. She was gonna take the midnight plane to Houston to visit her folks. So, it just stayed with me. After I got off the phone, I sat down and wrote the song probably in about 30 to 45 minutes. Something like that. Didn’t take me long at all, ’cause I actually used Farrah and Lee as kind of like characters I guess. A girl that comes to L.A. to make it and doesn’t make it and leaves to go back home. The guy goes back with her. Pretty simple little story, but it felt real to me. It felt honest to me. I played it for them and they loved it. I cut it on my first album as ‘Midnight Plane To Houston.’ And then later on, maybe a year or six months later, a guy in Atlanta wanted to cut the song on Cissy Houston, Whitney’s mother. They called and said they would like a more R&B sounding title and asked if we would mind if they changed the title to ‘Midnight Train To Georgia’ [so that “Houston” wouldn’t appear in both the title and artist name]. We said ‘change anything but the writer and publisher.’ So, he cut the song on Cissy Houston and it was a nice little cross between an R&B and country record. It got on the R&B charts. That’s the version that Gladys heard. Some of the background vocals you hear on Glady’s records were first on Cissy Houston’s record. It wasn’t as much, but just some of the feel of the background vocals. And of course Gladys’ record was more of a groove-oriented thing. It wasn’t as slow. It just became a monster record.”

Midnight Train To Georgia was not only a #1 hit on both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B, but also a #10 on the UK Singles chart. It garnered the group the 1974 Grammy Award for “Best R&B Vocal Performance” and was also inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. It is considered Gladys Knight’s signature song.

The song was featured during a scene in the 1978 film The Deer Hunter, as well as a number of television programs. Garry Trudeau even did a strip about it in his Doonesbury comic!

And without further rambling from me … here is Gladys Knight and the Pips …

Midnight Train To Georgia
Gladys Knight

L.a. Proved too much for the man
(Too much for the man, he couldn’t make it)
So he’s leavin’ the life he’s come to know, ooh
(He said he’s goin’)
He said he’s goin’ back to find
(Goin’ back to find)
Ooh ooh ooh, what’s left of his world
The world he left behind
Not so long ago

He’s leavin’ (leavin’)
On that midnight train to Georgia
(Leavin’ on the midnight train)
Yeah, said he’s goin’ back
(Goin’ back to find)
To a simpler place in time
(Whenever he takes that ride) oh yes he is
(Guess who’s gonna be right by his side)

And I’ll be with him (I know you will)
On that midnight train to Georgia
(Leavin’ on the midnight train to Georgia)
I’d rather live in his world (live in his world)
Than live without him in mine
(Her world is his, his and hers alone)

He kept dreamin’ (dreamin’)
Ooh, that someday he’d be a star
(A superstar, but he didn’t get far)
But he sure found out the hard way
That dreams don’t always come true
(Dreams don’t always come true) oh no
(Uh uh) uh uh (no, uh uh)
So he pawned all his hopes (ooh ooh ooh)
And he even sold his old car (woo woo woo)
Bought a one way ticket back
To the life he once knew
Oh, yes, he did
He said he would

Oh, oh, he’s leavin’ (leavin’)
On that midnight train to Georgia
(Leavin’ on the midnight train)
Yeah, said he’s goin’ back to find
(Goin’ back to find)
Ooh, a simpler place in time
(Whenever he takes that ride) ooh
(Guess who’s gonna be right by his side)

And I’m gonna be with him (I know you will)
On that midnight train to Georgia
(Leavin’ on the midnight train to Georgia)
I’d rather live in his world (live in his world)
Than live without him in mine
(Her world is his, his and hers alone)

Oh, he’s leavin’ (leavin’)
On the midnight train to Georgia
(Leavin’ on the midnight train)
Yeah, ooh, y’all
Said he’s goin’ back to find
(Goin’ back to find)
Ooh, a simpler place in time
(Whenever he takes that ride) ooh
(Guess who’s gonna be right by his side)

And I’ve got to be with him (I know you will)
On that midnight train to Georgia
(Leavin’ on the midnight train to Georgia, ooh ooh)
I’d rather live in his world (live in his world)
Than live without him in mine
(Her world is his, his and hers alone)

gonna board
The midnight train to ride
For love (for love) gonna board (gonna board)
Gotta board the midnight train to go
For love (for love) gonna board (gonna board)
The midnight train to go

My world (for love), his world (gonna board)
Our world (the midnight train to go) now I’m his alone
My world (for love), his world (gonna board)
Our world (the midnight train to go) now I’m his alone
I’ve got to go (for love), I’ve got to go (gonna board)
I’ve got to go (the midnight train to go) hey
I’ve got to go (for love), I’ve got to go (gonna board)
(The midnight train to go)
My world (for love), his world (gonna board)
My man (the midnight train to go) his girl
I’ve got to go (for love), I’ve got to go (gonna board)
(The midnight train to go) I’ve got to go
My world (for love), his world (gonna board)
Our world

Songwriters: James D. Weatherly
Midnight Train To Georgia lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

♫ Neither One Of Us ♫

Posted on May 4, 2020 by jilldennison under music