But It Was Just My Imagination Once Again
| "Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Unmarried by The Temptations | ||||
| from the album Sky's the Limit | ||||
| B-side | "You lot Brand Your Own Sky and Hell Right Here on Earth" | |||
| Released | January xiv, 1971 | |||
| Recorded | Golden World (Studio B); November 24, 1970 and December three, 1970 | |||
| Genre | Soul | |||
| Length | three:54 | |||
| Label | Gordy G 7105 | |||
| Songwriter(s) |
| |||
| Producer(southward) | Norman Whitfield | |||
| The Temptations singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
| "Merely My Imagination (Running Away with Me)" | |
|---|---|
| Song by The Rolling Stones | |
| from the album Some Girls | |
| Released | June 9, 1978 |
| Recorded | October – December 1977 |
| Genre |
|
| Length | 4:38 |
| Label |
|
| Songwriter(south) |
|
| Producer(s) | The Glimmer Twins |
| Some Girls rail listing | |
| 10 tracks
| |
"Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)" is a song by American soul group The Temptations, written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong. Released on the Gordy (Motown) characterization, and produced by Norman Whitfield, it features on the grouping'southward 1971 anthology, Sky'due south the Limit. When released as a single, "Just My Imagination" became the third Temptations song to attain number ane on the US Billboard Hot 100. The single held the number one position on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart for two weeks in 1971, from March 27 to Apr 10. "Just My Imagination" as well held the number one spot on the Billboard R&B Singles chart for iii weeks, from February 27 to March 20 of that yr.[1]
Today, "Just My Imagination" is considered one of the Temptations' signature songs, and is notable for recalling the sound of the group's 1960s recordings. It is as well the terminal Temptations single to characteristic founding members Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams. During the process of recording and releasing the single, Kendricks left the group to begin a solo career, while the ailing Williams was forced to retire from the act for wellness reasons. In 2004, Rolling Rock mag listed "Just My Imagination" as number 389 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. The vocal was covered past the Rolling Stones on their Some Girls anthology in 1978.
Composition and lyrics [edit]
A full orchestral organization with strings and French horns adorning a bluesy rhythm track and bass line provides the instrumentals. Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine of allmusic notes that the vocal is narrated by a man who imagines a human relationship with the woman he loves, is canny enough to realize that his daydreams are fiction, yet is overwhelmed by them. The lyrics capture his resignation to his fantasies. The vocal as a whole captures their total emotional effect on him. The starting time two verses found the theme and explore the narrator's daydreams, in which he and the object of his affections are lovers preparing to be married, to "heighten a family" and build "a cozy little habitation / out in the country / with ii children, maybe three". In the bridge, the narrator prays that he will never lose her love to some other, or he will "surely die". By introducing this dubiousness, the musical span simultaneously connects the move from dream to reality, completed when the final lines shift from imagery to bald statement: "But in reality / she doesn't even know me". For Erlewine, "the Temptations' performance has a dream-like quality, quietly drifting through the singer'due south hopes and desires."[2]
Origins [edit]
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, producer/composer Norman Whitfield and lyricist Barrett Stiff crafted a string of "psychedelic soul" tracks for the Temptations.[three] By 1970, the Temptations had released psychedelically influenced hits such as "Delinquent Kid, Running Wild", "Psychedelic Shack", "Brawl of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today)", and the Grammy Award-winning "Cloud Nine".[four] In a 1991 interview, Eddie Kendricks recalled that many of the Temptations' fans were "screaming encarmine murder" later on the group delved into psychedelia, and demanded a return to their original soul sound.[5]
"Just My Imagination" was the event of one of the few times that Whitfield relented and produced a ballad every bit a single for the group. Whitfield and Stiff wrote the song in 1969, but with the Temptations' psychedelic soul singles consistently keeping them in the U.s. Pinnacle xx, Whitfield and Strong decided to shelve the limerick and wait for the correct fourth dimension to record it. In late 1970, the Temptations' single "Ungena Za Ulimwengu (Unite the Globe)", a psychedelic soul vocal most world peace, failed to reach the Acme 30, and Whitfield decided to record and release "Just My Imagination" as the next unmarried. He approached Barrett Stiff, and asked him to pull out "that song nosotros were messing effectually with a year ago... because I'm going to record it today."[6] Except for their tardily 1960s duets with Diana Ross & the Supremes, the Temptations had not released a single that was not based in psychedelia since "Delight Return Your Honey to Me" from The Temptations Wish It Would Rain in 1968.
Recording [edit]
Norman Whitfield began the recording of "Just My Imagination" by preparing the song's instrumental track. Whitfield bundled and recorded the non-orchestral elements of the instrumental with Motown'due south studio ring, The Funk Brothers, who for this recording included Eddie Willis and Dennis Coffey on guitar, Jack Ashford on marimba, Jack Brokensha on timpani, Andrew Smith on drums, and Bob Babbitt on bass. Jerry Long, an arranger who had previous experience with scoring films in Paris, worked on the orchestral system and conducted several members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in performing the horns and strings for the recording. The Temptations had heard the Funk Brothers' tracks and loved them, just were "totally knocked out", co-ordinate to Otis Williams, when they heard "the finished record with all the strings".[vii]
The Temptations added their vocals at Motown's Hitsville Usa headquarters. While all five Temptations usually sang lead on singles during the psychedelic soul era, "But My Imagination" is primarily a showcase for Eddie Kendricks, who sang lead on such Temptations hits as "Get Ready," "The Way You Exercise the Things You Practice," and "You're My Everything"; in fact, this is the only Temptations hit in which Dennis Edwards did non take a lead vocal during his unabridged tenure with the group. The Temptations remained at Hitsville overnight recording "But My Imagination," and while the other four members went abode at six o'clock in the morning, Kendricks remained in the studio, spending several boosted hours recording takes for his atomic number 82 vocal.
The vocal was recorded in the midst of a bitter feud between Kendricks and the Temptations' de facto leader, Otis Williams. Dissatisfied and frustrated with Williams' leadership, Kendricks began to withdraw from the grouping, and picked several fights with either Williams or his all-time friend, bass singer Melvin Franklin. When Kendricks told his friend ex-Temptation David Ruffin about his problems in the group, Ruffin convinced Kendricks that he should brainstorm a solo career. Later on a last altercation during a Nov 1970 Copacabana date, both Kendricks and Williams agreed that it would be best for Kendricks to leave the group. By the time "Just My Imagination" was recorded, Williams and Kendricks were no longer on friendly speaking terms. Nevertheless, Williams was impressed by Kendricks' performance on the recording, and in his 1988 Temptations biography referred to "Simply My Imagination" as "Eddie'due south finest moment".[8]
Paul Williams, the Temptations' original lead singer and Kendricks' lifelong best friend, who sings the first line in the bridge ("Every night, on my knees, I pray..."), had suffered for three years from health problems related to alcoholism and sickle-cell illness. By the time "Only My Imagination" was cut, Paul Williams' contributions to the Temptations' recordings had been reduced, and the group had Otis Williams' old associate Richard Street lined up as Paul Williams' replacement. Equally for Kendricks, he was eventually replaced by Damon Harris, who would be featured in the grouping's 1972 hit "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone".
Release and reception [edit]
Motown released "Simply My Imagination" equally a single on their Gordy label on January 14, 1971, with the up-tempo psychedelic soul song "You Brand Your Own Heaven and Hell Right Here on Earth", from the 1970 Psychedelic Shack LP, as the B-side. The Temptations performed "Just My Imagination" and "Get Prepare" for their final advent on The Ed Sullivan Evidence, broadcast alive on January 31. On-screen, Kendricks stood several anxiety away from the other Temptations, and made little eye contact with them; Otis Williams later remarked that one could see the grouping was no longer a consummate unit of measurement:
But there was such a bittersweet feeling. Eddie had really changed. Paul was on his last legs. Watch the clip of us doing the vocal on Ed Sullivan nosotros're non together. Eddie is off by himself. There was no more group. Sure enough, when we played the Copa that week, Eddie left between shows. He didn't come up back.[ix]
Cash Box described the vocal as The Temptations' "softest single operation in recent time," stating that it is "infrequent material for markets that by and large overlook the team's textile."[10]
On February vii, 1971, "Merely My Imagination" entered the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 nautical chart at number 71 and later number 1 on both the Hot 100 and the U.Due south. Billboard R&B Singles charts.[six] It also became the group'south beginning entry on the Adult Contemporary chart, reaching number 33; the grouping would non render to that chart until 1984.[11]
The single was included along with "Unite the World" on the Temptations' ninth regular studio anthology, Sky's the Limit, which included the terminal Temptations recordings to characteristic Eddie Kendricks. He began working on his solo anthology All By Myself shortly earlier officially leaving the group.[4]
The intended follow-up to "Just My Imagination" was "Smiling Faces Sometimes", on which Kendricks sang lead. When Kendricks left, they released, instead, "I'm the Exception to the Rule", a vocal in the same vein (featuring Kendricks, Otis Williams and Edwards on atomic number 82) which follows "Only My Imagination" on the album. Unable to promote the song considering they did non have anyone to do his parts in concert, the song failed miserably so the company pushed the "B-side" – the group's re-recording of "Information technology's Summertime", initially the B-side of "Ball of Confusion", at the terminal-minute, and Norman Whitfield had The Undisputed Truth tape "Grinning Faces Sometimes", for whom it was a major hit. The Temptations and Norman Whitfield returned to psychedelic soul for their next album, Solid Rock, whose second single, "Superstar (Retrieve How Y'all Got Where Yous Are)", was written past Whitfield and Barrett Potent as an declared criticism of both Kendricks and David Ruffin.
Chart performance [edit]
Personnel [edit]
The Temptations
- Eddie Kendricks – pb vocals, first tenor
- Paul Williams – solo on bridge, baritone
- Dennis Edwards – offset tenor
- Otis Williams – second tenor
- Melvin Franklin – bass vocals
Notes [edit]
- ^ Whitburn, Joel (2004). Summit R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-2004. Record Research. p. 572.
- ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)". allmusic . Retrieved 2008-11-07 . .
- ^ Eder, Bruce. "Norman Whitfield > Biography". allmusic . Retrieved 2008-11-thirteen .
- ^ a b Ankeny, Jason. "The Temptations > Biography". allmusic . Retrieved 2008-11-thirteen .
- ^ Audio interview with Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffin Archived 2010-02-12 at the Wayback Auto, recorded in 1991 in the Britain. Retrieved on September 28, 2005. When asked several times about the Temptations' psychedelic records, Kendricks asserts that having the group record psychedelic soul was wholly "the producer's [Norman Whitfield'due south] idea", and that past 1970, "the fans were screaming bloody murder", and demanding a render "to what we do best".
- ^ a b Bronson 2003
- ^ Williams & Romanowski 2002, p. 151
- ^ Williams & Romanowski 2002, p. 150
- ^ Williams, Otis and Weinger, Harry (2002). My Girl: The Very Best of the Temptations [CD liner notes]. New York: Motown/Universal Records.
- ^ "CashBox Record Reviews" (PDF). Cash Box. January 30, 1971. p. 26. Retrieved 2021-12-09 .
- ^ Bronson, Fred (October 9, 2008). "Chart Beat out". Billboard . Retrieved 2008-11-07 . .
- ^ Canada, Library and Archives (17 July 2013). "Epitome : RPM Weekly". Bac-lac.gc.ca . Retrieved 6 June 2021.
- ^ Joel Whitburn'southward Top Popular Singles 1955-1990 - ISBN 0-89820-089-X
- ^ "Meridian 100 Hits of 1971/Elevation 100 Songs of 1971". Musicoutfitters.com . Retrieved 2016-10-05 .
- ^ Billboard. 1971-12-25. p. 15. Retrieved 2016-10-03 .
References [edit]
- Bronson, Fred (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits (5th ed.). New York: Billboard. ISBN0-8230-7677-6. .
- Crandall, Bill; et al. (December 9, 2004). "500 Greatest Songs of All Fourth dimension". Rolling Stone (963): 65–163. Retrieved 2008-xi-07 . . (EBSCO subscription required for online access.)
- Williams, Otis; Romanowski, Patricia (2002). Temptations (Revised ed.). Lanham, Dr.: Cooper Square. ISBN0-8154-1218-five. .
Further reading [edit]
- "Simply My Imagination (Running Away with Me)". Super Seventies Rocksite! . Retrieved 2008-xi-07 . .
- The Temptations - Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me) on YouTube
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_My_Imagination_%28Running_Away_with_Me%29
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