Reversion To The Mean

A veritable Heat Wave.

Among the innumerable accolades accredited to THE WHO, they were, when considering both the quantity and quality of their output in this field, perhaps the greatest cover band of all-time.  "(Love Is Like A) Heat Wave" was composed by the Motown team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland (universally known as Holland-Dozier-Holland) and first made popular by Martha and the Vandellas in 1963.  In addition to being a staple of live performances in their early days, THE WHO also released a studio version of "Heat Wave" on their second album A Quick One (1966).  During those formative years on the London club circuit THE WHO promoted themselves as playing "Maximum R&B."

Long-time subscribers knew that already, right?

A brief survey of H-D-H songs of which you will be familiar:

"Where Did Our Love Go?"
"Baby I Need Your Loving"
"Baby Love"
"How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)"
"Stop!  In The Name Of Love"
"Nowhere To Run"
"I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)"
"This Old Heart Of Mine"
"You Can't Hurry Love"
"Reach Out I'll be There"
"You Keep Me Hanging On"

As kids today are wont to say, "That's just sick!"  Altogether, twelve H-D-H songs reached #1 on the Billboard chart.  Let's take a moment to reflect upon the greatness that once was Motown.

THE WHO incorporated a wide variety of Motown/Tamla songs into their live and studio repertoire.  However, for our purposes here today I will highlight only the Holland-Dozier-Holland songs performed by The Greatest Rock n' Roll Band in the World.

"I Gotta Dance To Keep From Crying" (1964, as The High Numbers)

"Leaving Here" (1965)

"Baby Don't You Do It" (1971)

"(I'm A) Roadrunner" (1975)

The Motown influence may be seen elsewhere in the broader WHO compositional oeuvre.  The band's 1966 album A Quick One included a song that shares the title of the H-D-H song Run, Run, Run (The Supremes version released in 1964).  As early as 1978 THE WHO began trying out on the stage assorted versions of a song that eventually became a B-side Pete Townshend solo song titled "Dance It Away" (1982) which features WHO bassist John Entwistle and Keith Moon's replacement on drums, Kenney Jones (so that makes it 75% WHO.  Or something).  While the lyrical content and musical stylings of "Dance It Away" are certainly different from "I Gotta Dance To Keep From Crying," the thematic concept of dancing away one's problems is incontrovertibly similar.

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With yesterday's induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame both Greg "Mad Dog" Maddux (Jude's boy) and Tom "the Reds Killer" Glavine, and acknowledging the on-going controversy over HOF-eligible players who are alleged to have used performance enhancing drugs during their playing careers, I feel obligated today to link this, one of the greatest-of-all Nike commercials.