Missville USA: 10 Motown songs that should be deleted from history

Bob Kayli – ‘Small Sad Sam’

A stunning reminder of the dangers of nepotism, ‘Small Sad Sam’ was recorded by Berry Gordy’s brother, Robert Gordy, under the pseudonym Bob Kayli. Admittedly, the track was released during the early years of Motown, hitting the airwaves in 1961 under the Tamla label when Gordy and company were still finding their feet as a record label. Even still, this effort is unimaginative, uninteresting, and frankly bland – a far cry from the exciting soul sounds that the label was releasing at the time.

In essence, the song is a response to Jimmy Dean’s ‘Big Bad John’, which had been a colossal hit for the country star earlier in the year. Clearly, Gordy was looking to capitalise on the commercial power of that track, but the laboured delivery of the vocalist along with the unnatural blending of soul and country fail to recpature the spirit of the original track. Ultimately, it’s predominant crime is being vastly unmemorable.

Ray Oddis – ‘Randy, The Newspaper Boy’

1964 was the year of ‘Dancing In The Street’, ‘Where Did Our Love Go’, and ‘Baby Love’, to name just a few of the iconic hits published by Motown in those 12 months. The label was riding high all over the world, but bizarrely, Gordy chose to end the year by releasing an insipid deluge of novelty songs and bland B-sides, which had been gathering dust at Histville USA for some time. One such song that should have never seen the light of day was ‘Randy, The Newspaper Boy’, a novelty song recorded by popular DJ Ray Otis.

By all accounts, the dismal release – supposed to be based on the character of Tiny Tim from Dickens’ A Christmas Carol – was only put out in order for Motown to suck up to the DJ. Whether that claim is wholly accurate or not, it is difficult to think of any other reason for the label to put this out into the world. The spoken word lyrics are cheesy, uninspired and, above all else, poorly written. Motown boasted some of America’s greatest songwriters, but they must have all been on holiday when this track was written.

R. Dean Taylor – ‘Indiana Wants Me’

Keen to capitalise on the rock market, Motown established the subsidiary Rare Earth in 1969, but many of the releases on that imprint were forgettable at best and dreadful at worst. ‘Indiana Wants Me’ is one such record which has long since divided opinion among Motown fans. While the song, written by Taylor himself, has often been praised – it even got to number five on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1970 – it is simply too corny not to include within this list.

Reportedly written after Taylor saw the film Bonnie and Clyde, the song opens with a particularly irritating police siren, which then gives way to a strange blend of country music and brief attempts at rock. Over the course of the four-minute song, the multi-track vocals become particularly grating, and the almost impressively unimaginative, repetitive vocals don’t help either. By the time the authorities catch up with our narrator at the end of the song, his capture comes as a blessed relief.

The Velvettes – ‘Ain’t No Place Like Motown’

Motown certainly had cause to be proud of itself by the time December 1965 rolled around; the label had become a cultural phenomenon. Still, nobody likes a show-off, and this needlessly self-congratulating track ‘Ain’t No Place Like Motown’ sounds as though Gordy was trialling a theme tune for a sitcom based around Hitsville, USA. You can imagine this irritatingly upbeat earworm playing over an old-school title sequence, showing shots of Gordy, Diana Ross, Little Stevie Wonder, and The Velvettes in soft focus.

Perhaps realising the cringe-worthy quality of the record, this Velvettes song was never released as a standalone single and most often appears on compilations of obscure and forgotten Motown tracks. Seemingly, the song was penned by Richard Witte – who did not amass many songwriting credits during his time with Motown – and given to one of the label’s premiere vocal groups, The Velvettes, who admittedly give the song a certain appeal. Regardless of their talent, it is difficult to escape the sitcom-theme styling of this particular track.

The Supremes – ‘No Matter What Sign You Are’

The Supremes first signed with Motown in 1961 and quickly became the label’s flagship act. Amassing the label more hit singles than any other artist, the Diana Ross-led outfit came to define the Motown sound by the mid-1960s. However, the majority of their hits had been written for them by the Holland-Dozier-Holland team, so their departure from Motown in 1968 had severe knock-on effects on Ross and the gang. ‘No Matter What Sign You Are’ was supposed to be the group’s final single before Ross went solo under the orders of the label boss. However, the strange, almost psychedelic astrology-themed anthem failed to live up to expectations (shocker).

Failing to recapture the exciting energy of previous singles like ‘Baby Love’ or ‘Stop! In the Name of Love’, ‘No Matter What Sign You Are’ is pretty forgettable. Were it not for its misguided psychedelic angle, presumably inserted in an attempt to capitalise on the hippie age, it might have been ignored altogether. In fact, the song was so divisive that The Supremes’ Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong didn’t even sing on it – we don’t blame you, girls – and were replaced by session singers.

Popcorn and the Mohawks – ‘Custer’s Last Man’

Novelty records are almost never good, so why did Motown release so many of them? Issued by Motown in 1960, ‘Custer’s Last Man’ was an attempt to cash in on the success of ‘Mr Custer’, which had been a number one for Larry Verne earlier in the year. Even though Verne’s song is also pretty dismal, at least by modern standards of taste and decency, the Motown rendering manages to make the song so much worse. ‘Custer’s Last Man’ is criminally similar to Verne’s track, bordering on plagiarism at some points.

It is easy, in the modern day, to criticise the novelty song for its offensive portrayal of indigenous tribes and First Nations, presenting General Custer as some kind of hero. However, even without this context, it is still difficult to find any kind of intentional humour within Popcorn and the Mohawks’ misguided novelty record.

Captain Zap and the Motortown Cut-Ups  – ‘The Luney Landing’

If you are a child of the 1980s, you likely remember the sonic assault inflicted upon this nation by Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers, who pumped out a range of ear-worm novelty songs which strung together various hit singles from years gone by. You might not know, however, that Motown had its own Jive Bunny era, in the form of Captain Zap and the Motortown Cut-Ups, who released ‘The Luney Landing’ in 1969.

Coinciding with the Apollo 11 mission to the moon, the song follows a conversation between a spaceman (Captain Zap) and mission control. The captain’s answers to the various questions posed to him are answered via snippets of classic Motown singles, including the likes of Edwin Starr’s ‘25 Miles’ and The Supremes’ ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’. While the song is, by definition, a novelty track, it is certainly difficult to get through its two-minute runtime while retaining your sanity.

Eugene Remus – ‘Hold Me Tight’

There was a great deal of experimentation at Motown during its first year of operation. While some of those experiments paid off – see Barrett Strong and ‘Money’ – a lot of them fell flat. The short-lived recording career of Eugene Remus falls into the latter category. His first and only single on the label was a disappointing rendering of Smokey Robinson’s ‘You Never Miss A Good Thing’, backed with the offensively bad ‘Hold Me Tight’.

Written by Berry Gordy and Robert Bateman – who had hundreds of writing credits for Motown, including ‘Please Mr Postman’ – the song lifts the Latin melody of ‘La Bamba’ but manages to suck all the joy out of that iconic track. The individual performances on the song are pretty dismal, but the songwriting itself should take the majority of the blame. Gordy himself realised how atrocious the song was, pulling it from the release after a few months and repressing the single with ‘Gotta Have Your Lovin’’ on the B-side instead.

Charlene – ‘I’ve Never Been To Me’

Motown was a force for soul music throughout its heyday, but Gordy was always a businessman at heart. When audiences moved on from the infectious sounds of Detroit soul, the label boss attempted to pivot his label to other styles. As a result, when Motown began to decline in relevancy during the late 1970s, the label put out a litany of insipid pop dross, including this dreary ballad written by Ron Miller and Kenneth Hirsch.

“I’ve been to paradise, but I’ve never been to me” is a laughably bad lyric, yet it is the lyric that underpins the entirety of this awe-inspiringly terrible effort. To give the song its due, it is notable as the first top ten hit for Motown sung by a white woman, but aside from that pub quiz-level trivia, there is nothing to be gained from Charlene’s ‘I’ve Never Been To Me’.

The Contours – ‘Funny’

Motown might have released a slurry of misguided novelty songs, disappointing cash grab tracks, and tax write-offs, but The Contours’ ‘Funny’ isn’t any of those things: it is simply a bad song. The band’s major hit (and, arguably, only notable contribution to the Motown label) came in the form of the anarchic, excitable R&B single ‘Do You Love Me’. In a particularly bizarre marketing move, however, Gordy initially had the band record slow, laboured doo-wop ballads like ‘Funny’.

Released in 1961 and backed with ‘The Stretch’, this egregious single was written independently by Berry Gordy Jr – who should have taken its reception as a sign to remain in the back offices of Motown. Not only is the songwriting itself appallingly bad, but it seems unbelievable that Gordy thought up the song as a doo-wop ballad. A doo-wop ballad. If anybody could pull off such a bizarre idea, it would be the folks at Motown, but, unfortunately, The Contours did not help matters.

It might not come across on the excitable shouting of ‘Do You Love Me’, but The Contours were not the greatest vocal group to ever sign for Motown. Even still, ‘Funny’ must have been recorded on a bad day for the group, as not a single member is in key. The high-pitched lead vocals make late-night karaoke sessions at the local flat-roof pub sound like Frankie Valli, and they only seem to get worse as the song progresses. I beg of you, commit this dismal single to eternal damnation; everybody will breathe a sigh of relief.