Soul, astrology, and novelty records: The five most bizarre Motown songs of all time
Novelty records, experimental efforts, and spiritual awakenings; these are all things which you wouldn’t typically associate with the soul and R&B empire of Motown Records. Beyond ‘Baby Love’ and ‘My Girl’, though, the Detroit label issued some utterly bizarre records over the years.
Back in 1959, when a young Berry Gordy took out a loan from his parents to start a record label, Tamla, he was taking a colossal risk. How could a small venture in Detroit compete with the all-encompassing power of major labels? Yet, within a few years, Motown Records was dominating the American pop charts on a weekly basis, and once Gordy and the company had landed on their format for hit records, the risks tended to stop. After all, it was hit records which kept the lights on at Hitsville USA, so why stray from those tried and true methods?
In fact, the history of the label is full of stories about Gordy refusing to release singles that he deemed too risky or without any hit potential. Those were songs like ‘What’s Going On’ or ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’, which have since become viewed as some of Motown’s greatest efforts. So, it is all the more bizarre that records like ‘He’s An Oddball’ or ‘Randy, the Newspaper Boy’ made it through the label’s ruthless quality control department.
Needless to say, the vast majority of these off-the-wall anthems have since fallen into obscurity, obscured by the success and popularity of more prominent Motown releases, and rightly so. However, there is certainly something to be gained in revisiting Motown’s more obscure, bizarre releases. Not only are they quite good comedy value, but they also provide a fresh new look at one of the most documented and beloved record labels in music history. Sure, the novelty records are pretty dismal, and the lyrical content of other tracks hasn’t exactly aged well, but these unexpected and inexplicable releases are nevertheless a part of Motown history.
Aside from anything else, they are reflective of the idea that Motown were attempting to break into virtually every avenue that the music industry had to offer them, whether that be R&B excellence or weird novelty tunes about the moon. Each to their own, I suppose. So, join us on this path of offbeat discovery, as we delve into five of the strangest, most unexpected, and most bizarre records to ever be released under the Motown banner.
The five strangest Motown songs:
Diana Ross and the Supremes – ‘No Matter What Sign You Are’ (1969)
Motown’s flagship act, The Supremes, put their incredible vocal talents to more hit records than anybody else during the label’s golden age.
While it does seem akin to sacrilege to include any of their recordings on this list of oddities, it must be said that ‘No Matter What Sign You Are’ is a pretty unexpected song for the Diana Ross-fronted group. After The Supremes lost their songwriting saviours, Holland-Dozier-Holland, in 1968 when the trio left Motown, Gordy tried virtually everything to keep them in the pop charts.
As ‘No Matter What Sign You Are’ suggests, those attempts stretched to strange astrology-fueled love songs. Written by Gordy himself and with backing instrumentation from the Funk Brothers, the song has all the hallmarks of a classic Motown hit, but the spiritualism of the lyrics feels just a little bit off. While certainly not a terrible track, there is something about Diana Ross singing about astrology that feels particularly odd.
Nick and the Jaguars – ‘Ich-I-Bon #1’ (1959)
During the early days of Tamla, Gordy was still finding his feet in terms of which releases would gain mainstream attention and which wouldn’t. As such, the first year of the label is awash with records which don’t seem to fit with the iconic ‘Motown sound’ which was established a few years later. A prime example of this is ‘Ich-I-Bon #1’, an instrumental surf rock earworm from the short-lived Pontiac outfit Nick and the Jaguars.
In a similar vein to ‘No Matter What Sign You Are’, this captivating, if a little repetitive rock and roll record is not offensive to the ears by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, its oddball quality comes from the fact that Motown Records had a very distinctive sound to it, and ‘Ich-I-Bon #1’ is about as far from that sound as you can get. What’s more, the surf rock outfit were the very first white act to have a release on Motown, although they were never actually signed to Berry Gordy’s label.
Irene “Granny” Ryan – ‘No Time At All’ (1973)
By the time the 1970s rolled around, Motown had certainly carved out its spot in the music industry, and Gordy’s label produced some of its greatest hits during that period – including Marvin Gaye’s ‘What’s Going On’ and Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’, among many others.
However, Motown had its fingers in many different pies during that time, including a decent chunk of money in the Broadway musical Pippin. This investment in the show led the label to publish some of the music from the show, including a performance of ‘No Time At All’, performed by Irene Ryan as the character Berthe.
Ryan boasted an extensive career in entertainment, going back to the days of vaudeville, but she is perhaps best remembered for her role as Granny on the TV show The Beverly Hillbillies. This character added another layer of appeal to ‘No Time At All’, a song about the ageing process, and the recording is actually pretty enjoyable if you’re in the mood for musical theatre.
Even still, the fact that this stage-focused single came adorned with the Motown moniker makes it one of the label’s most unexpected releases. Ryan, for all her undeniable quality, was a definite outlier within Motown’s 1972 roster.
The Lewis Sisters – ‘He’s An Oddball’ (1965)
1965 was an incredible year for Motown; it was the year that they truly cemented their place in popular culture, with an unparalleled run of now-iconic hits. On the other hand, it was also the year that the Motown subsidiary label V.I.P. released this strangely unnerving effort from Helen and Kay Lewis.
The sisters were used to dealing in niche novelty records, totalling three Motown singles in 1965, but this particular effort seems to be in a kind of purgatory between classic Motown soul and a nightmarish fever dream.
Unlike the previous inclusions on this list, there are very few redeeming qualities when it comes to ‘He’s An Oddball’. The Lewis Sisters’ vocal performance leaves a lot to be desired, as does the backing instrumentation, but the weirdest parts of the song are undoubtedly the lyrics and the terrible production quality. Its loud, room-shaking nature, wailing harmonies, and pleas of “shh, don’t you let him hear ya” make for an experience which would be unlistenable were it not for, ironically, its oddball nature.
Captain Zap and the Motortown Cut-Ups – ‘The Luney Landing’ (1969)
In truth, there are dozens of weird Motown novelty records that could have found a place in our list. None of them, however, match 1969’s ‘The Luney Landing’ in terms of peculiarity.
Recorded and released as a means of capitalising on the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon, the single takes the form of a mock interview between a cheery-voiced TV presenter and the imaginary Captain Zap. Zap’s answers to the various questions are made up of sound bites from various Motown hits, including ‘The Tracks of My Tears’ and ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’, among many more.
There is certainly some comedy value to be had in this clip-show of a record, and you could even argue that it provides some insight into the mood around America when the moon landings took place, with certain lines about their ‘victory’ over the Russians included towards the end of the song.
Ultimately, though, this novelty record is little more than a cash-grab, albeit an incredibly strange, unexpected, and out-of-character cash-grab for Motown Records.
