Yup, it's a Miracles twin-spin this week. This one (Smokey having gotten his top-tier credit just after "I'm the One You Need") actually tells the exact same tale as "Come 'Round Here," only more gently and more persuasively. It's the same backstory: Smokey loves this girl whose guy is a no-good cheat, and his challenge is to persuade her that the guy is wrong not because Smokey wants her for himself but because she needs to be away from this other guy regardless of what she chooses for an alternative.Which is too many syllables for a pop song, so Smokey, taking the lyrical matter for himself this time, constructs a more placid scenario in "Baby, Baby Don't Cry," which in 1969 brought the Miracles back to the Top 10 for only the second time since 1963, astonishingly (through no fault of the majestic and underappreciated "Going to a Go-Go" and "More Love," topics for another day).
Smokey again is content to stand at the sidelines - "Love is here, standing by" - but is more direct in his dismissal of his rival suitor. The confidence is palpable; Smokey never loses control of his voice in the way he did in the thrilling yelps of "Come 'Round Here." He knows that what he is speaking is the truth, and further, that she will get it this time. That she will get it this time.
And you root for him once again, the man whose love is so deep and so secure that he can fade into his chorus, "Love is here, standing by."
2 comments:
The number of brilliant singles the Miracles released in that peiod that failed to hit the Top 10 is nothing less than astonishing. Johnny Rivers' cover of "Tracks of My Tears" charted higher than theirs -- I loves me some JR but seriously: WTF? Meanwhile, they had "Tears of a Clown" sit on the shelf for several years because Berry Gordy didn't like it! Amazing.
Couldn't agree with you more, Mike; thanks. And to think that Kim Carnes's "More Love" outcharted Smokey's!
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