I'm weaker than a man should be

Continuing my trip up the list of the most streamed songs for each year.  

1965 : I Can't Help Myself - The Four Tops

This was a track I was sure I knew, but couldn't quite place it - until I saw it was sometimes called "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)" which somewhat gave the game away.  So it's a hat-trick for the Motown sound (even if "Be My Baby" isn't strictly a Motown track).

And yeah, this is a fine 2:46 (2:4? is a very popular track length in this period) of Levi Stubbs doing his usual singing/wailing/pleading thang over a top backing track.  And this is probably peak Motown, written and produced by (as Billy Bragg puts it) "Holland and Holland and Lamont Dozier too - here to make it all OK with you".  I like the song but can't claim it's one of my absolute favourites - for The Four Tops, I'd go for "Reach Out", for male Motown artists, I'd go Smokey or Marvin, but for absolute Motown favourites I'd go for the ladies - The Supremes or Martha And The Vandellas.  But I can only work with what I'm given...

It did pretty well for itself - #1 in the US for a couple of weeks and getting to the dizzy heights of #23 in the UK on its initial release and #10 on re-release in 1970 (and Donnie Elbert also charted with a version in 1972).  WIkipedia also notes the strong similarities with The Supremes "Where Did Our Love Go" - there was a suggestion that Lamont Dozier called the track "I Can't 't Help Myself" in a nod to his recycling skills, but I don't believe that for a minute.

Wikipedia does its usual random job at giving us cover versions - The Supremes is obviously a good shout, but I'm not sure the versions by Johnny Rivers, Donnie Elbert, Bonnie Pointer, Billy Hill or Teen Queens have gone down in history.  I have at least heard of Kid Rock and La Toya Jackson, but I'm pleased I've not had to endure their versions.  secondhandsongs.com actually doesn't do a lot better only adding Jimi Hendrix and Dolly Parton that I've heard of - although I'm fascinated as to what Captain Cardiac & The Coronaries did with it!

I'm wondering if this mid-60s Motown purple patch on the charts is to do with compilation albums and playlists - I can imagine that quite a few people will ask to stream this specific track, but many more will go for "Alexa, play some 60s Motown" and all these tracks are going to be on there, aren't they?  I'm expecting the competition from this year to be pretty fierce - let's see what we've got.  Ah, there you go - the top selling single in the UK this year was Ken Dodds's "Tears".  I'm maybe not so surprised I wasn't listening to that, but there have to be some better tracks from the year.  Surely?

Well, at a very quick glance at the year's charts, I "only" came up with Gerry & The Pacemakers' "Ferry Cross The Mersey", "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling" from both Cilla Black and The Righteous Brothers, Tom Jones's "It's Not Unusual", The Supremes' "Stop (In The Name Of Love)", The Beatles' "Ticket To Ride", "Daytripper" and "Help!", Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" and "Like A Rolling Stone", The Byrds "Mr Tambourine Man", Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe", The Rollling Stones "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" and The Who's "My Generation".  Is that enough?  For a completely different reason The Barron Knights' "Pop Go The Workers" also jumped out at me - they were around back then?  Do we even need to look at America?  Actually, there aren't that many other tracks that I know from across the pond but I am going to call out The Miracles' "Tracks Of My Tears" because it's just a fantastic track.  All in all, I think we can say it was a pretty strong year...

Given such a strong year, the winner is always going to be a pretty arbitrary choice - I'm fine with The Four Tops taking it, in the same way that I'd have been fine with pretty much any of those other tracks taking it.  Even Ken Dodd, just for the giggles.

1964 - Not an entirely expected winner
1966 - One of my fave Stones tracks