Maybe I've got girl groups on the brain because it's the 10th anniversary of my singing girl-group pastiche songs in Little Shop of Horrors. But then, you know, I've always had a weakness for the girl-group style. So when I heard an obscure but totally awesome Motown girl-group song last week (thanks to Lauren Laverne on BBC 6) it made my day. This is my new jam: "Needle in a Haystack" by the Velvelettes.
I love the backing vocals, love the harmonies, love the stomping rhythm. I listen to it over and over and try to decide whether the lyrics can be interpreted in a proto-feminist way (a girl warning her friends to stay away from men who are bad news) or whether they're just garden-variety early-60s sexism (assuming that men have just one thing on their minds and girls ought to "play hard to get").
Oh, who am I kidding. Really, I listen to it over and over because it's a great Motown pop song. I think it deserves to be much more widely known, so give it a listen, why don't you?
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