Michigan's Best Songs: The Four Tops song that couldn't help but be a hit
... and the Supremes song that inspired it.
Despite a first decade of relative obscurity together, the Four Tops headed into the studio to record the first single for their second record with momentum, ready to live up to their name.
The talented Motown R&B foursome arrived in 1953 with a name alluding to the quartet’s intention to top the charts, and the group had shown capable of a breakthrough on its first record, 1964’s Four Tops.
The record netted three top 100 singles including the Holland–Dozier–Holland instrumental turned pop hit Baby I Need Your Loving, which reached No. 11 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Ask the Lonely, meanwhile, was a top-10 R&B hit, indicating the Holland-Dozier-Holland-produced group was primed to take the next step.
Teamed up with Holland–Dozier–Holland again for its second album, the group found the formula for a No. 1 hit when it released I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch) 60 years ago this week. A sensational pop single for any era with a great backstory to match, I declare I Can’t Help Myself one of MICHIGAN’S BEST SONGS.
The “formula” songwriters went to in this case was the same chord progression Holland–Dozier–Holland used in penning The Supremes’ top-10 single Where Did Our Love Go the previous year. Go ahead and listen to it if you weren’t aware, it’s the same … old song (sorry).
As AllMusic’s Ed Hogan points out, Lamont Dozier even acknowledged the similarity while writing it, which is reflected in the on-the-nose title I Can’t Help Myself.
While the construction is a near carbon copy, we’re talking about Motown here. There is still plenty of subtlety to Levi Stubbs’ emotional vocal delivery and the wonderful saxophone solo contributed by Mike Terry more than add enough personality to make I Can’t Help Myself its own hit, becoming the group’s first No. 1 single for two non-consecutive weeks in the summer of 1965 among some serious, historical pop and rock heavyweights.
It first topped the charts on June 12, ironically enough, replacing their labelmates The Supremes’ Back in My Arms Again at No. 1. It lost the spot the following week to the Byrds’ Mr. Tambourine Man before regaining the top spot on June 26. The week after that, it was knocked off by some band called The Rolling Stones with some song called (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. I know, I’m throwing a lot of obscure stuff at you here.
Despite its familiar structure, there’s a reason baritone lead singer Levi Stubbs and fellow Tops Abdul "Duke" Fakir, Renaldo "Obie" Benson and Lawrence Payton were able to make I Can’t Help Myself feel like something completely new and exhuberant. The spirited, fast-paced wailer feels like the quintessential Motown singalong -- one they’d have you shuffle your feet to and sing together at the end of the Motown Museum tour.
Formed as friends while attending Detroit’s Pershing High School, the group was scooped up by Berry Gordy and Motown in 1963 after unsuccessful runs with a handful of record labels over its first decade together.
Easily the group’s most straightforward pop single to date, I Can’t Help Myself represented something of a departure from the Four Tops’ early Motown days of recording jazz standards for its Workshop Jazz Records label.
Endlessly bouncy and cheerful in its composition, I Can’t Help Myself emulates the euphoric feeling of love, contrasted by Stubbs’ desperate lead vocals laying out how badly he wants to leave, but can’t, based on the feeling he gets when he sees his girl:
Wanna tell you I don't love you
Tell you that we're through
And I've tried
But every time I see your face (I can't help myself)
I get all choked up inside
It’s the type of big emotional play disguised as a sugary sweet pop song that makes songs like I Can’t Help Myself and so many other Motown singles feel so timeless.
Despite its status as the band’s best-selling and most streamed song, I Can’t Help Myself’s lifted chord progression and simple emotional play give me the impression it’s not taken as seriously as some of Motown’s other more revered No. 1 hits — including one of its own. The next set of songs the group recorded in 1966 included more extravagant arrangements and buildups. None more than Reach Out I’ll Be There, a song Fakir recalls the group being luke warm about initially releasing as a single.
“I echoed Levi (Stubbs). “Come on, man, we’ve got momentum,” Fakir recalled in his book I’ll Be There: My Life With the Four Tops. “All of our records are soaring up the charts. You put that out, it’ll be number 20 with an anchor.”
When the group heard what Holland-Dozier-Holland did with the song, though, it left little doubt in their mind the song was a smash as it went No. 1 on charts across the globe.
It just lifted spirits. It was a mixture of pop, a Jewish chant, like an anthem or something, an enlightening song with a good message, telling friends, lovers, neighbors, whoever to reach out and I’ll be there. Eventually, it became the number one song across the world. It was a bigger hit than I Can’t Help Myself.
While some critics and members of the group might argue the Tops “topped” I Can’t Help Myself the following year with the more musically adventurous Reach Out I’ll Be There, its only other No. 1 hit, I Can’t Help Myself just can’t help but endure as its most recognizable song. Even if we already loved another version of it the first time around.
(Which of the two songs do you think is better. Which do you love more? Lemme know in the comments!)
MORE FROM Michigan’s Best Songs:
Michigan's Best Songs: The story behind college football's greatest fight song
As far as one-hit wonders go, you could do a lot worse than Louis Elbel, a 21-year-old University of Michigan student whose passion for his school’s football team inspired a song infinitely more popular today than when he penned it more than 125 years ago.