SMOKEY ROBINSON & THE MIRACLES: "The Tears Of A Clown"
I've written extensively about how important AM Top 40 radio was to me when I was (in theory) growing up. In the period from, say, 1970 to 1975, maybe 1976, my ears were surgically attached to WOLF-AM and WNDR-AM in Syracuse, the soundtrack of my sentence as an adolescent and teen. The giddy thrill of enjoying pop songs on the radio--the very place where pop songs were most meant to be enjoyed--shaped me in ways I had no idea about at the time. Amidst the splendor of Badfinger and Johnny Nash and Gladys Knight & the Pips, Alice Cooper, The Raspberries, Isley Brothers, Sweet, a Chuck Berry oldie, and some guys who used to be in The Beatles, AM radio gave me the gift of Motown's greatest miracle: the gift of Smokey Robinson & the Miracles.
"The Tears Of A Clown" was a song out of time. It had been an album track on the Miracles' 1967 LP Make It Happen, but it was not originally released as a single; "More Love" and "The Love I Saw In You Was Just A Mirage" were the chosen 45s off Make It Happen. A year passed. Two years, three years, a freaking eternity in the ephemeral world at the top of the pops. In 1970, this by-now-ancient track was exhumed and dusted off as a single release in England, and it cried all the way home to a UK # 1. British success prompted an American single release, which also hit # 1, the only Smokey Robinson & the Miracles single ever to top Billboard's Hot 100.
The motif of the clown who cries is held in disdain as trite, hoary. I remember once seeing a TV movie scene that took place in a writers' workshop. The scene contrasted the approaches of two would-be writers: a pretty young woman (our heroine) whose elegant and aching study in quiet desperation depicted her protagonist's nearly-empty refrigerator as a long-term effort to slowly commit suicide by starvation; and a middle-aged hack in the making, writing cloyingly about the tears of a clown. The former creative effort could be art; the latter could only be rubbish.
But we forgive and embrace the use of this motif when it transcends itself, in Pagliacci, and in the careful grace of Smokey Robinson & the Miracles. Robinson had touched on the allusion previously in The Miracles' 1965 gem "The Tracks Of My Tears," with its couplet "People say I'm the life of the party 'cause I tell a joke or two/Although I might be laughing loud and hearty, deep inside I'm blue." Robinson used the lines "Just like Pagliacci did/I'll keep my sadness hid" in "My Smile Is Just A Frown (Turned Upside Down)," a song he co-wrote and produced for Carolyn Crawford in 1964. It's familiar, it's pat, but it works just fine as a pop lyric. Hell, in the right context, it approaches genius as a pop lyric.
The right context arrived in the form of some music written by Stevie Wonder and Hank Cosby. The instrumental was captivating, hypnotizing, and its swirling ambiance reminded Robinson of the circus. Just like Pagliacci did. That line from the Carolyn Crawford song was slightly tweaked ("I try to keep my sadness hid"), and became a part of an irresistible soul-pop juggernaut. The bass line and the melody bend you to their will, a virtual calliope teasing you, enticing you, owning you, propelling you, even as the lovelorn dreamer within you concedes that there is no goddamned hope. Dance away the heartache. Laugh, clown, laugh.
"The Tears Of A Clown" was a song out of time. It had been an album track on the Miracles' 1967 LP Make It Happen, but it was not originally released as a single; "More Love" and "The Love I Saw In You Was Just A Mirage" were the chosen 45s off Make It Happen. A year passed. Two years, three years, a freaking eternity in the ephemeral world at the top of the pops. In 1970, this by-now-ancient track was exhumed and dusted off as a single release in England, and it cried all the way home to a UK # 1. British success prompted an American single release, which also hit # 1, the only Smokey Robinson & the Miracles single ever to top Billboard's Hot 100.
The motif of the clown who cries is held in disdain as trite, hoary. I remember once seeing a TV movie scene that took place in a writers' workshop. The scene contrasted the approaches of two would-be writers: a pretty young woman (our heroine) whose elegant and aching study in quiet desperation depicted her protagonist's nearly-empty refrigerator as a long-term effort to slowly commit suicide by starvation; and a middle-aged hack in the making, writing cloyingly about the tears of a clown. The former creative effort could be art; the latter could only be rubbish.
But we forgive and embrace the use of this motif when it transcends itself, in Pagliacci, and in the careful grace of Smokey Robinson & the Miracles. Robinson had touched on the allusion previously in The Miracles' 1965 gem "The Tracks Of My Tears," with its couplet "People say I'm the life of the party 'cause I tell a joke or two/Although I might be laughing loud and hearty, deep inside I'm blue." Robinson used the lines "Just like Pagliacci did/I'll keep my sadness hid" in "My Smile Is Just A Frown (Turned Upside Down)," a song he co-wrote and produced for Carolyn Crawford in 1964. It's familiar, it's pat, but it works just fine as a pop lyric. Hell, in the right context, it approaches genius as a pop lyric.
The right context arrived in the form of some music written by Stevie Wonder and Hank Cosby. The instrumental was captivating, hypnotizing, and its swirling ambiance reminded Robinson of the circus. Just like Pagliacci did. That line from the Carolyn Crawford song was slightly tweaked ("I try to keep my sadness hid"), and became a part of an irresistible soul-pop juggernaut. The bass line and the melody bend you to their will, a virtual calliope teasing you, enticing you, owning you, propelling you, even as the lovelorn dreamer within you concedes that there is no goddamned hope. Dance away the heartache. Laugh, clown, laugh.
Don't let this show convince you. In our sadness, we find salvation. The good Lord above invented AM Top 40 radio for the specific divine purpose of playing records like "The Tears Of A Clown." We never really get over the emotions of our youth, that precarious, daunting span of time between learning how to use a crayon and learning how to use experiences to make something--anything--happen. If you were a lonely kid, a square peg, the songs you heard on the radio gave you possibilities. Maybe you couldn't quite quell the sting inside. Perhaps you'd play at smiling in the public eye. You'd hide your tears, just like Pagliacci did. And you'd move forward, awkwardly at first, your stride gaining a little bit of stubborn, shaky confidence over time. A smile on your face, only there trying to fool the public. It's a cliche. Smokey Robinson & the Miracles transformed it, made it something timeless and profound. Turn the radio up a little louder. There's some sad things known to man. But no one can see. No one can hear. Not when there's no one around.
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