Simple Game - the Four Tops
Sixty-one years ago today, in 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, Martin Luther King Junior delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech to 250,000 civil rights campaigners.
Seven years later, after the departure from Motown of the songwriter/producer team of Holland/Dozier/Holland, the Four Tops and label boss Berry Gordy were looking around for new inspiration for the Detroit soul label (see last post). Motown had become the most successful record company in the US through it's own unique blend of soul pop which, under Gordy's leadership, studiously avoided direct political content.
In May 1970, the Moody Blues were massively successful in the US, their last four LP's all having reached the Top 30 in the Billboard Albums' Chart. They were "progressive", and seen as modern and forward looking for their use of the Mellotron, an early version of the synthesiser. Through a series of coincidences, Gordy, always looking to incorporate the latest musical trends in his "hit factory", met the Moodies' producer Tony Clarke, and engaged him to work with the Four Tops. The result was their version of "Simple Game", an undistinguished Moody Blues "B" side to the excellent "Ride My See Saw" from 1968.
"Simple Game" was written by the Moody Blues' keyboard (and Mellotron) player Mike Pinder who died on April 24th. The Moodies' original is a philosophical reflection on life, a declaration of the self-determination of sixties' youth, that they can "be what (they) wanna be".
The Four Tops version transforms the song into a paean of emancipation, the words, as delivered by Levi Stubbs, acquiring some of the fire of King's famous speech. There can be no doubt as to what Stubbs and the others mean when they sing:
"As time goes by, you will see
that we're going to be free.
You and me, we'll touch the sky,
can't you see in your mind's eye
that we are one, we're all the same
and life is just a simple game.
There by your side I will be
when this crazy world is free,
free from doubt
when it finds out
exactly what we're meant to be,
that we are one, we're all the same
and life is just a simple game.
Thoughts of another day
flashing through my head,
thinking how life could be,
all of the things that I lately have said:
Be what you wanna be!
What we deserve to be!
What we are meant to be!...."
Recorded in May 1970, "Simple Game" is one of the first overt reference to civil rights themes by any of Motown's recording artists, the Temptations' "Ball of Confusion" being recorded in the same month and Marvin Gaye's album "What's Going On" begun two months later. It's no wonder that Gordy waited 16 months before releasing it. Curiously, around the same time, the Four Tops' bass singer, Renaldo "Obie" Benson, wrote the song "What's Going On" only to have it rejected by the other Tops as being too radical. He then took it to Marvin Gaye and the rest is music history.
"Simple Game" was recorded in the UK, and features some, if not all, of the Moody Blues, definitely Pinder and guitarist Justin Hayward, but probably the others too.
However, these records were not the first Motown civil rights releases. Back in 1963, Berry Gordy approached Martin Luther King and asked permission to record his speeches. He later released the album of them entitled "The Great March to Freedom" culminating in the "I Have a Dream" address. In 1969, aged 14, I bought the UK 1968 pressing of this, released on the Tamla Motown label in the aftermath of King's assassination. In America, Gordy even released a single of "I Have a Dream" which cracked the Hot 100", peaking at number 88 in the chart.
Years later, a student at Manchester University, I lent the record to a left-wing Socialist Worker Party (or some such) friend, Nick Hamm. After several months of pestering him to return the album, he told me matter-of-factly that he'd in turn lent it to fellow lefty Jeral d'Souza and his brother Nigel, both of whom had by now finished their degrees and left Manchester. I protested, but Nick calmly pronounced that they, being Brits of Sri Lankan descent, and therefore non-white, had more claim to the ownership of the record than I had. I wish them well, and they have, all three, been phenomenally successful over the years, but I also wish they hadn't stolen my album. It was the most important record in my collection, and indeed we have to thank Berry Gordy that the speech was recorded for posterity, whatever else he has done, good or bad over the years.
Far, far more important however, is that King's dream hasn't yet come true. It's interesting to go through the speech today with a pen, marking each sentence with a tick or a cross, a tick for the things that have happened, and a cross for those that haven't. There aren't many ticks. For example:
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today."
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