SEXUS – “How Do You Kiss?” THE TEMPTATIONS – “Get Ready”
SEXUS – “How Do You Kiss?”
THE TEMPTATIONS – “Get Ready”
The Temptations ambush me twice today, once in plain sight on a Smokey Robinson: Songwriter comp tape, and I think, “this is a great song”, and then once on a tape I made once for someone long ago, and I think, “this is a great song”. Reader, I danced around my room. The Sexus record comes on next: “How do you kiss? What if you miss? What if you never get it right?” (find it: it’s the song Baxendale wish they could write). “Get Ready” works as a partial answer-record, the spiralling ah-ah-ah chords being the mental armour the singer/listener’s got to put on to deny the possibility of getting it wrong. Because the only possible answer to Sexus’ question is – just do it and see what happens. But that simple act of will is the hardest thing in the world, and Smokey Robinson knows this, and so a lot of his best songs turn love into predestination – the dancefloor bodyslam of the chorus in “Get Ready” hardens your love into something as vast as a tidal wave, as inevitable as the tide.
Tom in New York London Paris Munich • Pop • 655 views
Do you like the other two Sexus singles, Tom? I’ve been listening to them a lot recently, and thought that I was the only person who remembered them?
My brother likes them too. “Edenites” I thought was good but a bit clumsy on the vocals. “The Official End Of It All” underwhelmed. Digitised copies wd be very welcome – my CDs are long lost, sadly.