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| Later pressings separated the Holland brothers' writing credits |
My current jam is the classic song by The Miracles, 'Mickey's Monkey'. This song was an A-side single released on 45rpm 7" by Tamla/Motown Records in 1963. It was written by the legendary Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team, as was the B-side, 'Whatever Makes You Happy'. This record was a rarity for The Miracles since Smokey Robinson and various members of The Miracles were the main songwriters for the group. 'Mickey's Monkey' is such a catchy and off-the-cuff tune, you can feel the spontaneity in it's captured performance. The Lum De Lum De Lai-ai line gets stuck in my head for hours at a time. Cool tidbit about the song- The Vandellas and Mary Wilson of The
Supremes were among the Motown all-stars that provided additional backing vocals on the
track. There was also a dance in the early 60's called The Monkey, which you can see in full effect in the live-performance video I came across (check out The Supremes doing back-ups, plus the other famous faces dancing). I also had to add a video of Major Lance performing his hit 'Monkey Time,' which was also based on the dance craze and released the same year. It's not as famous as The Twist or Picking Up Change, but at least The Monkey yielded 2 all-time great songs!
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