On a not entirely separate note, has anyone else heard Marc Rapson’s pretty stunning dub remix of “Grapevine”? I’m absolutely sure that had the 12-inch single existed back then Whitfield would have jumped straight in and done an extended mix, and this is quite fantastic…

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Rare Earth’s entire career surely?

She still has my vote. Must hear the Slits.

(Anyone remember the eleven-minute Creedence Clearwater Revival version? No? It’s just as well.)

When I try to put all that aside, though, it stands up pretty well. I’m inclined to agree that the intro is the most dramatic part of all, shuffling in but still introducing tension. The other moment I’d like to commend is “Losing *YOU* would end my life you see,” precisely because it doesn’t sound even remotely contrived, though it obviously is.

BTW, Gladys Knight’s version only got to 47 in the UK. I know I have heard it, but I don’t really remember what it sounded like. Never cared for the Slits though.

Song hate hasn’t shown up on this thread, at least not yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a lot in the world. “Grapevine” became a boomer nostalgia song at the time of The Big Chill, hence all those TV commercials. When I think of what I “feel” in relation to that song, it’s really what I recall feeling, since so much oversaturation makes it hard for the music to come across with any attributes anymore. It’s to great songs as “To be or not to be” is to great phrases lifted from soliloquies: you forget that the words actually mean something. I myself am particularly oversaturated because I walk for exercise, and when I want to keep up a good clip I’ll lock myself into a rhythm from a song, and my tempo song for flat surfaces is the Gaye version of “Heard It Through the Grapevine.” I don’t have a walkman, so this is all in my head, but my mind plays that song every day, not for any feeling or meaning but just to keep the pace.

Real good Douglas Wolk piece from a few years back about the challenge in covering the song. “Just three lines in, you have to leap up an octave in the middle of a phrase and nail a crucial word of the lyric.”

Thinking about it, maybe it’s most emotionally accurate for me to think of the two versions as two different songs. I know as a matter of fact that’s not true, but that’s how it feels to me when I hear them. Every version I’ve ever heard of “Yesterday,” to pick an obvious example, sounds like a different interpretation of the same song; Gladys and Marvin sound like they’re singing two very different songs. Maybe Dave Marsh’s take on Marvin’s version gives a key to why by placing Marvin’s version in a racial/historical context; I found Marvin’s version more interesting once I thought of it in those terms. By comparison, Gladys’s version seems wholely about the emotions of her specific situation. Given how well she expresses those emotions (with major help from the Pips and the Funk Brothers), that’s plenty for me.

One aspect of the two competing versions that I think tips in Marvin’s favor: the backing female singers do seem to “taunt” Gaye, which suits the mood and message of his version, but - as fine as they are - it could be argued that the all-male Pips lending her support seems to contradict Gladys’s message of betrayal at the hands of her low-down dirty dog of a man.

From the wtf ‘clunk’ at the start of the record (a serendipitous by-product of the dustbin drum sound you get on much mid-late 60s Motown?) and the potentous electric piano riff, through the build of additional instruments to that wail of anguish on the horns, the intro sets the scene perfectly for Gaye’s battle not to “lose it”.

But what follows is just as good. An easy 10 for me. (I don’t think I’ve heard the Gladys Knight version, but I like The Slits’ take too.)

The main body of the record, as fine as it is, feels more like a very good soul record of its time, not that there’s anything wrong with that.