Upside Down Soul

I’d rank the guitar intro in the top 25 most recognizable riffs in Christendom. Maybe higher. That’s the antipodean Hindley Street Country Club  taking a crack at it. I guess they’re just a cover band, but up several notches from the usual.

I was tempted to paste the Detroit Spinners original here. It was a million-seller in 1972. All the vids of the Spinners on Soul Train and Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert and similar shows are all lip synched. The band does their steps, and generally look genial, but I’d have preferred something fresh.

It’s understandable. Back then, the audiences just wanted to hear their favorite songs without waiting for the top of the hour over and over on the Top 40 stations. They might revolt if it didn’t sound just like the record. People are more interested in different versions of things these days, I think. It comes from having pretty much all forms of entertainment at your fingertips at all times. Something new sticks out.

The framework of the song lends itself to various permutations of it. This is my favorite bent version of it:

The original song was used to great effect as the outro for the movie Roman J. Israel, Esq., a very underrated movie:

I’ll be skippin’ and a-jumpin’, indeed.