You Keep Me Hangin’ On
THE SUPREMES
Motown. 1966
This may be the quintessential Motown track; four-on-the-floor pounding drums, a sinewy bass-line that snakes around the melody but always comes back to the one without being overbearing, pealing guitars with chunky rhythm, restrained Hammond organ for flavour, and wrenching, from-the-heart lyrics about a woman so hurt she wants out for the sake of her own sanity.
The fact that it was a huge hit is not surprising; 1966 was the year for Motown, and in two short years, the Supremes had risen from no-hit status to become the company’s most consistent money-makers. Their looks didn’t hurt; add to that flawless Holland-Dozier-Holland compositions and the jazz-honed interplay of the Motown house band, collectively and appropriately known as “The Funk Brothers”. Rarely has the musical world seen as solid a rhythm engine as James Jamerson and Benny Benjamin, taut and powerful like the Mustang V8s being cranked out elsewhere in the Motor City. If aliens ever landed and needed to know what the Motown sound is, you couldn’t do much better than play them this song.
The intro is a staccato and insistent guitar proclamation brought to the fore by a snare slam, backed by a quick tom roll, that leads into the body of the song. The chorus is established off the top, getting directly to the heart of the matter. This song epitomises directness; every aspect of it is insistent. The pealing guitar continues on through the choruses, replaced by a percussive tapping rhythm through the verses, with the melody going up to a higher register, ratcheting up the tension. The second to two pre-choruses takes it right to the heart of the matter: “Seeing you only breaks my heart again”. The music stops dead, save for the guitar-siren, which helps punctuate the predicament and helplessness of the next line, ”There ain’t nothin’ I can do about it”.
“You Keep Me Hangin’ On” manages a rare feat, but one that only the best soul music carries off: it moves your heart and feet simultaneously, with a melody so rich and rhythm so insistent you can’t listen just once.
