1962
TWO LOVERS * MARY WELLS * MOTOWN 1035 * USA
Mary Wells started her career in the music business as a writer and wrote a song Bye Bye Baby for Jackie Wilson, but when she sang it for producer Berry Gordy he insisted that she record it herself. He took her into the studio recorded it on Motown's, then, one track system, the record was issued in 1961 (only the third release on the newly launched Motown label) and it stayed on the US charts for over a year. The above, a Smokey Robinson song and production, was her sixth single release and an album was issued with the same title. The song is interesting as it deals with schizophrenia a condition that was a popular phenomenon at the time and was described then as; a type of mental disorder, inclusive of what was formerly called 'dementia praecox', characterized by dissociation, particularly between the intellectual processes and the affective, the latter being also to a great extent disorganized. This disorganization, or deterioration, has four main varieties: hebephrenia, catatonia, paranoia, paraphrenia. Which seems to describe me well enough, and many I know.
The idea of 'Two lovers', with a twist, has been used to good effect before as can be heard on this Miss Joséphine Baker disc J'ai Deux Amours, a gorgeously sung song with its own twist on the theme.