Tears Pouring All Down My Face...

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First the facts.

Title : Nothing But A Heartache
Artist : The Flirtations (Shirley and Ernestine Pearce from South Carolina, Viola Billups from Alabama)
Label : Deram DM 216
Year : 1969
Recorded : London
Producers and Writers Wayne Bickerton and Tony Waddington (ex Pete Best Combo, later The Rubettes)

Stop. Collect yourself. Play it again. So where's the flaw - it can't BE this good. Nothing can be this good. This record is every drug you've ever taken, every girl you've ever loved, like the dream you've tried to will into reality every single night of your stupid fucking life. No, better than that.

GET THIS RECORD. DOWNLOAD IT IF YOU CAN. BUY THE DERAM CD 'THE NORTHERN SOUL SCENE' AS I DID. NOW!

I first heard it at around 3.00 pm yesterday on the headphones in Borders. I first heard it all the way through at 4.15, and I've played it continuously ever since.

One more time. A staccato brass and piano intro is pushed aside by the deepest, steadiest bass and drum groove imaginable. Something like those 'dragging chain' Martha And The Vandellas rhythm grooves, but a million times more thunderous. Vocals come quickly, with proto-philly strings - "Nothin' but a heartache every day/nothin' but a teardrop all of the way" - the lead vocal strident, angry, wronged, then straining, vulnerable on "He's got me/oh why can't I get him". What happens next is, MUST BE, the greatest moment I've heard on record. The beat doubles, then marches on the spot, the brass looming overhead. Shirley, Ernestine and Viola's anger wells up, BOILS up -"Heartaches/ Teardrops/ All of the way!" and releases with a semi-screamed "Nothin' but a heartache EV-ERY DAY!" . And round again for another relentlessly intense verse (same as the first) and more heartache, teardrops...

On the outro - Shirley or Ernestine or Viola breaks free for a few seconds to testify to"tears pouring all down my face". You should know they're pouring down mine too.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Monday, 3 March 2003 17:46 (10 years ago) Permalink

b-but is it MELODIC??

― jess (dubplatestyle), Monday, 3 March 2003 17:49 (10 years ago) Permalink

A brilliant post, but I was saying the words to the thread title in the same pacing and tone as Jethro Tull going, "Snot is running down his nose!"

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 3 March 2003 17:50 (10 years ago) Permalink

dr. c can you soulseek this bad boy pls?

― mark p (Mark P), Monday, 3 March 2003 18:17 (10 years ago) Permalink

Art Bell used to play this great song every night.

― dan (dan), Monday, 3 March 2003 18:30 (10 years ago) Permalink

the whole flirtations album this is from (with the same title) is
fantastic - the same commitment to putting an electric charge on every single line, plus the all-around lovely arrangements. but yeah this song is unstoppable,

― dave k, Monday, 3 March 2003 20:39 (10 years ago) Permalink

dr c is otm
the best song ever

― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Monday, 3 March 2003 20:51 (10 years ago) Permalink

Terrific terrific song. First heard it on the Art Bell show awhile back and tracked it down. "Nothing But A Heartache" is the killer song on there, but as Dave K said the whole album is just fantastic - also check out "How Can You Tell Me".

― Chris Barrus (xibalba), Monday, 3 March 2003 21:04 (10 years ago) Permalink

it's arranged by the great Johnny Harris:
http://bongolia.org/music/johnny_harris.php (my incomplete discography)

― michael (michael), Tuesday, 4 March 2003 09:57 (10 years ago) Permalink

this is a wonderful record. been a favourite of mine since I was wee. I heard it at ATP a couple of years ago and nearly cried

― j0e (j0e), Tuesday, 4 March 2003 10:59 (10 years ago) Permalink

I can't work out how I missed this track in the 70's at Northern Soul events.

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Tuesday, 4 March 2003 14:50 (10 years ago) Permalink

not obscure enough for snobby djs? ;) (major label, uk release, etc)

― michael (michael), Tuesday, 4 March 2003 14:58 (10 years ago) Permalink

4 months pass...

dr c u are so right. absolutely fantastic.
not obscure enough ? never heard it before.
but then i was ne'er auld enough to go to
the spinning wheel or whatever it was called.

― piscesboy, Tuesday, 29 July 2003 16:15 (9 years ago) Permalink

This song is indeed fantastic, and caused me to dig out the compy Dr.C put it on, which is amazingly as good if not better. Sir, my hat's off to you!

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 29 July 2003 16:29 (9 years ago) Permalink

5 months pass...

i still listen to this weekly

― mark p (Mark P), Thursday, 15 January 2004 18:53 (9 years ago) Permalink

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. My dad works fixing pipes and installing beer in pubs around Liverpool and in one of these pubs he salvaged a box of seven inches they were going to chuck out. In the box was this, My Babe by Little Walter, a bit of Elvis and a bunch of other things. Classic.

― Jim Robinson (Original Miscreant), Thursday, 15 January 2004 20:48 (9 years ago) Permalink

I like how the lead singer's just a LITTLE off -- she doesn't nail the big notes perfectly and her voice is just a bit too thin for the song. It's this near-airtight pop-soul powerhouse with a layer of vulnerability where you least expect it.

― america's first municipal lunatic asylum (Jody Beth Rosen), Thursday, 15 January 2004 20:54 (9 years ago) Permalink

2 months pass...

it's on the new KFC advert!

― pete b. (pete b.), Friday, 19 March 2004 10:17 (9 years ago) Permalink

2 years pass...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39SjyMvBbk4&mode=related&search=

This video has been posted on another thread, but it NEEDS to be on this one.

― Griff Sheridan (Griff Sheridan), Monday, 9 October 2006 19:44 (6 years ago) Permalink

Song's in my top 100 of all time. It makes me want to dance like Byron Gilliam on Laugh-In (I searched for visuals, to no avail).

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Monday, 9 October 2006 20:11 (6 years ago) Permalink

omg that video was filmed at Coventry Cathedral WTF!! insane camera movement too...

― Konal Doddz (blueski), Monday, 9 October 2006 22:33 (6 years ago) Permalink

Definitely one of my all-time faves.

― Michael F Gill (Michael F Gill), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 00:38 (6 years ago) Permalink

WTF & WOW

― jed_ (jed), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 00:49 (6 years ago) Permalink

phwoar

― ram jam holder (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 02:28 (6 years ago) Permalink

it's good -- I love every part of this song that is not her singing "nothing but a heartache every day", which doesn't count as the chorus which makes me like it a bit more. flirtations album must be a pip, still haven't heard it.

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 03:06 (6 years ago) Permalink

Wow, just heard it for the first time. Now on my third. Utterly fantastic.

― Harpal (harpal), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 04:15 (6 years ago) Permalink

search: "how can you tell me" and "need your lovin'"

― ram jam holder (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 04:44 (6 years ago) Permalink

holy fuck that video is awesome

― joseph (joseph), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 04:51 (6 years ago) Permalink

a sheer waste of three minutes of my life.

― corey c (shock of daylight), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 05:22 (6 years ago) Permalink

and the song's only 2:30!

― ram jam holder (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 05:30 (6 years ago) Permalink

I was a little dissapointed.

There's something fucked up about that song's structure. There is a verse where the chorus should be and a chorus where the verse should be.

And no it isn't very melodic. But it definitely has a very danceable groove. It's easy for me to imagine it being used in a commercial, especially since it gets old after the first 30 seconds. Just the same damn thing over and over, it felt like.

― Rat Nasty (ratnasty), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 05:57 (6 years ago) Permalink

gets better each time you hear it

― timmy tannin (pompous), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 07:17 (6 years ago) Permalink

A great single - Bickerton and Waddington pre-Rubettes, production deliberately mixed up to be extra-loud, fantastic sense of tension and release ("Heart-ACHES! Tear-DROPS!"). Oh, and a number one cover version waiting to happen for anyone who wants it (Frank?).

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 08:03 (6 years ago) Permalink

i thought this was going to be by that other band called the flirtations.

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 11:00 (6 years ago) Permalink

That is absolultely fantastic!

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 11:12 (6 years ago) Permalink

The Now Time Delegation - featuring Lisa Kekaula of the Bellrays and Tim Kerr - did a great cover of this for their album Watch For Today

― i am not a nugget (stevie), Tuesday, 10 October 2006 15:12 (6 years ago) Permalink

1 year passes...

I'VE GOT A LOT OF THOSE HEARTACHES
I'VE GOT A LOT OF THOSE TEARDROPS

― G00blar, Saturday, 3 November 2007 17:52 (5 years ago) Permalink

I love how this thread randomly revives.

― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 3 November 2007 18:02 (5 years ago) Permalink

3 months pass...

Yep.

― Cunga, Sunday, 3 February 2008 20:36 (5 years ago) Permalink

Yes.

― Bimble, Saturday, 9 February 2008 09:46 (5 years ago) Permalink

3 months pass...

heard this on a LA oldies station today which was a nice surprise, but also weird, this was a pretty minor hit stateside, oldies stations usually stick to top 10, occasionally dipping a little lower.

― gershy, Saturday, 17 May 2008 06:01 (5 years ago) Permalink

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