The Hottest Hit On The Planet:
“I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” by The Four Tops
In the eternal debate about parenthesis in song titles…
- (Are they necessary?)
- (Or are they superfluous?)
- (What is their deal, anyway?)
…“I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)” by The Four Tops is a curious beast.
For one thing, it wasn’t initially called “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch).”
On the single release, the parenthesis is notably absent. It wouldn’t remain absent for long.
As “I Can’t Help Myself” grew into an inescapable hit, people started referring to it as “that sugar pie honey bunch song.” And understandably so. “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch” is the most common phrase in “I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch).” Including backing vocal rejoiners, The Four Tops sing “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch” nine times.
There’s not a lot in it though: they sing “I Can’t Help Myself” a quite respectable seven times.
By August 1965, a review of Beatles’ support acts for the Shea Stadium concert referred to “I Can’t Help Myself” as “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch” – no “I Can’t Help Myself” mentioned at all!
Apparently, she killed it!
Motown would finally admit to the reality that everyone was calling it “that sugar pie, honey bunch song” a few months later when they released an instrumental version by Funk Brothers keyboardist Earl Van Dyke…
…and then finally made it official on the cover of their second album, Second Album.
For all of their genius, figuring out what to call records clearly wasn’t amongst Motown’s strongest skillset.
“I Can’t Help Myself” is simply too generic a song title. It’s not that there’s a lot of competition from other songs called “I Can’t Help Myself” – there are some, but they came after.
One of those, the one by Orange Juice, was a tribute.
But The Four Tops deserve better. They deserve a song title with a bit more punch. A song title that everyone was using anyway; “that song that goes sugar-pie honey bunch.”
(* In protest of this oversight, I shall refer to “I Can’t Help Myself” as “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” for the remainder of this column.)
Now, you can’t call your song “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” – not even in (parentheses) – and expect people to treat you with respect.
Not, that is, unless you are Levi Stubbs. When Levi Stubbs cried out “SUGAR PIE! HONEY BUNCH!!” he sounds as though he means it!
The most impressive thing about “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” is that The Four Tops managed to sing a song where the most common lyrics are “sugar”, “pie”, “honey” and “bunch” (in that order), and yet still sound like The Man. Imagine anyone else singing “sugar pie, honey bunch.” They wouldn’t be able to get away with it!
Okay, Dolly Parton kinda does. But that’s just because you could imagine Dolly calling people “sugar pie, honey bunch” in regular, everyday conversation. Which is not something you can say about Kid Rock, who, indeed has recorded a version, and he did in fact call the thing “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch.”
That trademark Levi Stubbs’ pleading hoot was partially the result of genes – he was a cousin of Jackie Wilson – but mostly because Motown was always giving him songs in a key just slightly higher than what he – as a baritone – felt comfortable singing. So that there’d be a strain in his voice. So that he’d have to struggle. Much as he – as a Black man – had struggled all his life.
Motown had done much the same thing with Diana Ross, playing songs in the wrong key so that she’d sound sad and hurt and a little bit vulnerable.
In the case of Levi Stubbs, it made him sound like a man fighting against the odds, fighting against the system. Fighting for your love.
Levi sounds significantly less as though he’s fighting against the system when he is singing lyrics like “sugar pie, honey bunch.” Those words, incidentally, were what Lamont Dozier’s grandfather called his wife’s – who was a hairdresser – customers: “How you doin’, sugar pie?” He’d call out “Good morning, honey bunch.”
So flippant and, let’s face it, just plain silly, are the words “sugar pie” and “honey bunch” that they almost distract you from the fact that “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch” is a song of pure desperation and romantic dependency: Levi is tied to your apron strings. He’s weaker than a man should be. He’s a fool in love, you see. He can’t help himself.
“Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” was an instant hit.
Back when songs took ages to climb the charts, each radio station taking its own sweet time to decide whether to add it to rotation or not, “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” raced to the top in about a month. T
The song itself makes a similarly instant impression.
“Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” may have the greatest intro of all time; a simple, short, phrase that builds up on each repeat, each time pounding that little bit harder, bass, guitar, strings, drums, until Levi finally cries out “Sugar Pie! Honey Bunch!” In later decades, DJs would use that building-up-trick to extend anticipation over multiple minutes. Motown was far more efficient, accomplishing the same effect in just over 10 seconds.
“Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” was such a big hit that for their next trick, Holland-Dozier-Holland would simply record it again, playing the same old song, but with the chord changes played backwards, on “The Same Old Song”, a genius piece of meta-level-song-writing, and a treatise on how the meaning of a song can change depending on its context… and depending on whether it is being played forwards or backwards (“The Same Old Song” is an 8.)
If simply taking your old hit and playing the chord changes backwards sounds a little lazy, two- Hollands-and-a-Dozier had an excuse:
Motown boss Berry Gordy had told them they only had 24 hours to write it. And record it. And ship it out to DJs.
Berry had issued such an unrealistic demand because The Four Tops old record label – Columbia – were planning on reissuing one of their old records, “Aint That Love”, to capitalize on “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch”s success.
Not only was Berry pissed that a white record company was trying to steal his thunder, and piggyback on all his hard work, he may also have been worried that “Ain’t That Love” would damage the Four Tops momentum. For “Ain’t That Love” is a pretty average song; one that sounded out-of-date even when it had initially been released in 1960.
The story of The Four Tops goes back even further than “Ain’t That Love”. The Four Tops story goes back to 1953. Quite incredibly, given that most R&B vocal groups of the era changed their membership so frequently that even they probably had difficulty keeping track of who was in and who was out – The Drifters have had more than 60 members over the decades!
The Four Tops had the same membership from the beginning all the way to the 90s!
The Four Tops began back in high school, when they formed to perform at a birthday party for one of the cool girls, under the name of The Four Aims. They soon changed their name to avoid confusion with the Ames Brothers:
The dullest of the white barbershop quartets of the 50s. And not a mistake I imagine many would have made.
Since they had called themselves the Four Aims because they were “aiming for the top” it was obvious what their new name should be…
It took The Four Tops an awfully long time – about a decade – to reach the top. But that just meant they had time to collect the life lessons required to sing something like “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” – a song about being a fool in love – and not come out of it sounding like a fool. The Ames Brothers could never.
“Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch” is a 9.
Meanwhile, in Garage Rock Land…
“Have Love Will Travel” by The Sonics
“WOOOAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!”
Seattle has always been loud.
Jimi Hendrix came from there. He was pretty loud.
But by this point he’d left Seattle and was playing with Little Richard and the Isley Brothers.
Given the absence of Jimi, I think we can say, with a pretty high level of confidence, that The Sonics were The Loudest Band In Seattle!
“WOOOAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!”
The Sonics were dedicated to being loud.
So dedicated were they to being loud that – inspired by the presence of a Boeing factory nearby – they named themselves after the “sonic boom” that was created whenever a plane exceeded the speed of sound.
They even named their second album Boom.
The “sonic boom” was a bit of a media obsession at the time, the sort of thing that terrified people. According to the Knoxfield News Sentinel, “Jets To Bring Sonic Booms”, the sound had been described as “terrifying”, “murderous”, “devastating”, and had “broke windows, killed livestock and chickens, upset little babies, loosened the foundations of homes, and produced just about every other catastrophe you could imagine.”
By 1962, The Times would be publishing “Sonic Boom Timetables” as if it were a weather report.
The Sonics would spend their career attempting to live up to, and perhaps even exceed, their namesake.
When The Sonics began however, way back in 1960, in their garage in Tacoma, they weren’t quite so loud. As best as cast be gathered, given they hadn’t made any records yet, The Sonics were more like fellow Tacoma-ites, The Ventures, who were hitting big with “Walk Don’t Run” at about the same time.
For a while there they had lead guitarist Andy Parypa’s mother on bass guitar, at least when they couldn’t find anybody else. So they probably weren’t quite the rock-pigs they would soon become.
Finally they found Andy’s brother, Larry, instead.
“WOOOAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!”
The garage rock of Seattle was basically what happened to surf rock once you removed the sunshine. And the girl in bikinis. And replaced the Beach Boy harmonies with a guy who went like “WOOOAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!”
Lead-screamer Gerald Roslie liked to go “WOOOAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!” a lot. It may have been his favourite lyric.
Certainly his favourite way of kicking off another face-melting slab of noise, or, as other bands might describe it, a song.
I pity the microphone. It must’ve shuddered every time Gerald’s face came near. What did that microphone ever do to Gerald?
“WOOOAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!”
The Sonics were not a chart phenomenon. Like, at all. At least not outside of Seattle.
Legend has it that the frighteningly primal “The Witch” went to Number 2 on a Seattle radio station chart behind Petula Clarke’s “Downtown”, only for it to be secretly revealed that it had actually gone to Number One.
(Radio stations had their own charts back then, seemingly based on a combination of sales from local record stores, listener requests, sometimes a “public survey”, whatever that means, occasionally the radio station’s own “judgement of record’s appeal.”)
The radio station had lied because, had they announced that “The Witch” was Number One, they’d have to play it during the peak-housewife listening daytime hours. “The Witch” was thought too frightening for the frail sensitivities of 60s housewives!
“The Witch” was a song that could only be played late at night.
Which, to be fair, is probably the best time to play it. Also, to be fair, the radio station in question – KJR, or at the time, KBLE – was a Christian station. It’s amazing “The Witch” got played at all!
As best as I can tell The Sonics never even appeared on television, that’s how much an only-in-Seattle phenomenon they were.
On a certain level the lack of success for The Sonics is perfectly understandable. They made The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” sound like Engelbert Humperdinck. But on another level, if there was ever a time when a band like The Sonics could become a major force, it was the mid-60s, in the wake of fellow North-Western garage rock band, The Kingsmen, and their ultimate 60s party song “Louie Louie,” a recording made for the very un-garage rock reason of auditioning for a gig on a cruise ship (they didn’t get the gig).
The Kingsmen version of “Louie Louie” was so big that it was investigated by the FBI after both Bobby Kennedy and J Edgar Hoover received countless letters from parents concerned that the song was so obscene it violated Interstate Transportation Of Obscene Material laws.
But that’s a whole other story – and quite a long one, a book has been written about it – the important thing is that the Kingsmen kicked off a wave of garage rock bands from the Pacific Northwest, at least one of which, Paul Revere & The Raiders, followed them to the top end of the charts.
The Sonics were never even in the mix. They were simply too loud. Also they recorded for a tiny and inappropriately named record label – Etiquette Records.
Here was their logo. Presumedly the name was a joke.
No band recorded by Etiquette has ever shown any interest in etiquette. Also, they owned a sister publishing company called Valet Publishing.
Other than The Sonics about the only thing Etiquette ever released were records by The Wailers. (Here, I’m supposed to roll my eyes and say “no… not those Wailers”) several members of which, including one called Rockin’ Robin, were also owners of the label. The Wailers first single was yet another cover of “Louie Louie”, but they also released this one, “Mashi.” It’s Egyptian for “It Moves.”
“WOOOAAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!”
The Sonics are said to have been so loud that at their shows people just stood plastered to the back of the room, hoping that the experience wouldn’t make them deaf (I initially typed that as “death”, and honestly, that works too). They were so loud that it was virtually impossible to record them.
Although, this may have been at partially because the only recording studio in Tacoma only had a two-track, which was primitive even at the time.
This is why every instrument on a Sonics’ record is distorted to f*ck. Also because they were simply that loud. Even if they had been shipped over to Abbey Road, the equipment may not have been able to handle them.
Like pretty much every debut album of the period, Here Are The Sonics!!! is mostly covers”
- “Do You Love Me?”
- “Roll Over Beethoven”,
- “Money (That’s What I Want)”,
- “Good Golly Miss Molly”, and, of course:
- “Have Love Will Travel”
And their own songs don’t really sound all that different.
It’s just 50s rock’n’roll, but played by the inmates of an insane asylum let out on Halloween night to go trick or treating. At which point they sing a song about how much they like to drink poison. They wrote that one themselves.
Bizarrely enough, both “Louie Louie” and “Have Love, Will Travel”, were written by the same doowop songsmith, Richard Berry. That’s the same Richard Berry who did the novelty baritone on The Robin’s “Riot In Cell Block 9”, and Etta James’ “The Wallflower.” Richard is one of those guys who nobody has ever heard of but just keeps on popping up at critical points in pop music history, changing the course of pop history and then disappearing off the face of the planet. Only to be found in the 80s living off welfare with his Mom.
Still, nothing about his 1959 original – other than perhaps the title, for it is a great title – suggests that it could be rendered as a great big Brontosaurus stomp complete with blood curdling shrieks!
About that title: it was clearly a reference to the popular Western TV shoot-em-up Have Gun, Will Travel. People did that a lot in those days. Bo Diddley released an album Have Guitar, Will Travel. Duane Eddy’s debut album was called Have Twangy Guitar, Will Travel. Both were amongst the loudest records of their respective years.
Having something, and consequently being prepared to travel, appears to have been a guarantee of a rockin’ loud record, as well as a source of 100% pure masculinity. And few bands were as loud, or as masculine sounding, as The Sonics. Christian radio stations playing songs for housewives couldn’t handle them.
“Have Love, Will Travel” is a 9.
Meanwhile, in Blues Guitar Hero Land…
It’s “For Your Love” by The Yardbirds
Aka, the song that made Eric Clapton leave the Yardbirds because it was too pop, and Eric Clapton doesn’t like fun.
Eric Clapton was only interested in one thing, and that one thing was the blues. He felt he was on a mission to introduce the blues to all the peoples of the world.
Eric and the rest of the Yardbirds, had been slogging it out for years, in blues bars across metropolitan London, but no-one seemed to care.
Even as the Rolling Stones and The Animals, two bands from the same blues scene took over the charts, and became super famous, no-one seemed to care. Even though The Yardbirds had taken over from the Rolling Stones as the house band at the Crawdaddy Club, once the Stones became too famous.
And even though the Crawdaddy Club had the craziest – and hardest to read advertisements in the Record Mirror,
…nobody seemed to care.
The kids didn’t even care when graffiti started appearing around London, claiming that “Clapton Is God.” A graffiti tag that became a meme. A meme that became accepted as truth. A meme, and hence a graffiti tag, that appears to be the basis for much of Eric Clapton’s reputation for being a guitar god. That graffiti, so Eric theorizes, was sprayed by Hamish Grimes.
A man whose job it was to introduce the band at the Crawdaddy Club and hype the crowd up. Spray painting “Clapton Is God” was taking his hype-man duties to the next level.
Still the kids didn’t seem to care. They recorded blues classics like Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Good Morning Little School Girl.” They may have recorded it whilst supporting the completely unrelated, in-fact a bit of a hoax, Sonny Boy Williamson II (he changed his name to Sonny Boy Williamson after the original Sonny Boy Williamson was shot). Nobody bought it.
Time then to record a pop hit or two.
There was only one problem. No-one in the Yardbirds knew how to write a hit.
So the job went to Graham Gouldman, who, many years later, would become one of the lead singers of 10CC. But at the time he was struggling to get some attention just as much as the Yardbirds were. He was in a band called The Mockingbirds and they were shopping for songs.
Back then, if you were a band in the market for songs, you went down to Denmark Street, because that’s where all the pop tunesmiths and publishers had set up shop. It was also where both Melody Maker and NME were based. But Graham couldn’t find a decent song there, and – since The Beatles were writing their own songs – he decided he would too.
“For Your Love” appears to be the first song he wrote.
It sounds very much like the first song somebody would write. There’s not a great deal to it: for your love, for your love, he’d give the stars above.
I guess you can understand why Eric wouldn’t have been too crazy about “For Your Love.” He doesn’t really do much on it. There’s hardly any guitar. The first thing you hear, and the dominant sound throughout the whole record is a harpsichord! A harpsichord being played by a guy – Brian Auger – who wasn’t even a member of the band!
Harpsichord wasn’t even Brian’s usual instrument (is it anybody’s?).
He usually played the Hammond organ. But he turned up to the session and a harpsichord in the corner, hidden under a sheet, was the closest thing they could find.
So, the first Yardbirds’ hit was a song they didn’t write, drenched in the sound of a guy who wasn’t a member of the band, and who didn’t really know what he was doing. And it was far more successful than anything else they had done previously. That’s gotta hurt!
Now, adding a harpsichord to your pop record certainly wasn’t a guaranteed way to grab a smash in early 1965, but on the other hand, it sure as hell wasn’t the blues. It’s a weird gothic horror-show version of a Beatles style “yeah yeah yeah” song. With bongos. I can’t imagine Eric liked the bongos.
To be fair, Eric didn’t really seem to like many things.
“I was unbearably arrogant” he told GQ decades later. “and not a fun person to be around most of the time, because I was just so superior and very judgmental.”
So Eric left, and in walked Jeff Beck (Jimmy Page was also in the mix about this point… honestly, keeping track of who was the guitarist for the Yardbirds and when is almost as challenging as keeping track of who’s in The Drifters.)
Jeff Beck had wanted to play guitar ever since he heard Les Paul play his whizz-bang versions of “How High The Moon” as a kid. Recordings that sounded so futuristic at the time that Les was invited onto science shows to demonstrate how to make them.
Jeff’s childhood curiosity about playing the guitar appeared to spring from a fascination that a piece of wood with knobs on it could make weird noises. It was the beginning of a lifelong obsession with guitars and related gizmos.
Let’s put it this way, that scene in Spinal Tap with the amplifier that goes up to 11… that’s almost certainly based on Jeff.
Jeff played a lot of weird noises on their next single “Heart Full Of Soul.” Weird noises inspired by an exotic instrument that would soon become surprisingly popular in rock music – the sitar – and a new special effects pedal that would do likewise – the fuzzbox.
“Heart Full Of Soul” was originally meant to feature an actual sitar, but the sitar-player couldn’t keep 4/4 time.
So Jeff tried to make the same sounds through a fuzzbox.
He didn’t really succeed, but it still sounds unbelievably cool.
Another record using a fuzzbox would be released in a couple of months.
Now I don’t want to come across as one of those people who are always ragging on Eric Clapton. Although it’s infinitely preferable to being one of those guys who truly do believe that he is God.
But it’s an inarguable fact that there’s a strong negative correlation between the awesomeness of a Yardbirds track and the presence of Eric Clapton. The Yardbirds didn’t need all that unbearable arrogance in their lives. What with being a God and all, it didn’t take long for Eric Clapton to find gainful employment.
He joined John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers:
A band who clearly and reassuringly would never play anything but the blues. Or anything as nearly good as “Heart Full Of Soul.”
A couple of Cream tracks might be as good though.
- “For Your Love” is an 8.
- “Heart Full Of Soul” is a 9.
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On the country side of the tracks, April of 1965 was dominated by Roger Miller
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neVBvyuSqkk
10 for Have Love Will Travel
8 for For Your Love
7 for whatever the Four Tops song is actually called.
Vital trivia today is that Its The Same Old Song being the same chords but sequenced in reverse. Now I’ve looked up the lyrics to that it makes perfect sense. Meta before anyone knew it.
I had both I Can’t Help Myself and For Your Love on my “60 Favorites from 1965 as I Turn 60” blog Glad to see these more in-depth discussions about each on here.
Indeed you did:
https://tnocs.com/as-i-turn-60-my-60-faves-from-1965/
I feel completely sure that Dolly Parton would, and has, used “Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch” in conversation.
How about an elevator music version of Heart Full of Soul?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=7vPDVz4LUq8