"Bernadette" By the Four Tops

Perhaps I could find a better Four Tops song, but this has always been my favorite.

Bernadette/People are searching for/The kind of love that we possessed/Some grow hard/Searching their whole life through/And never find the love I found in you.

A thematic advance over the Beatles. Holland-Dozier-Holland, our songwriters, realize the importance of the female presence, even though there's still that element of possession. In a sense, possession is healthy, as long as both parties are willing to submit to each other. I'm not sure the character here gets that, and even I'm wary of saying it. The power must be equal. When he sings, "In your arms I find not all the peace of mind/The world is searching for/But you, you give me the joy/This heart has been looking for," he redeems any trespass, though. Unlike Lennon, he has a world view. He has a stronger consciousness. He can realize she isn't quite what's necessary, but she provides him with something and he values it.

The thing I love most about Motown is the way they understand the power music should have. Love is the intersection of religion and violence, which is something they put into all their songs. They have that dedication, energy, commitment, and fervor. I don't mean to say that violence belongs in a relationship. By violence I mean passion, strong emotion, and energy. I don't mean to be vague. Violence, as unnecessary as it is in real life, is necessary in art. Art should never be polite, it should never hold your hand. And violence is an important part of human history, if not human nature. It must be addressed somehow. We can strive for pacifism and achieve pacifism, as we should, but we all have that anger at some moment. Here, as in the rest of my posts on this subject, I see violence as emotional energy, not something which harms. In Motown, as in my favorite music, I find this intersection of the dark and light parts of human experience, which Jung would certainly approve of. Their combination is essential in art and life. In a good Motown song you have an incredibly pained lyric backed by religious choral vocals and violent, heavy instruments. The songs possess a power and destruction most hardcore and metal don't.

Phil Spector was also king of this kind of song, in his own claustrophobic way--sex without being sexy, for the most part (Motown can be sexy, they're healthier). These songs are like any horror movies/stories involving teenagers: always obsessed with puberty and the fear and hope it inspires. They may seem simple superficially, but there's a lot to be learned.