Soul Sides / Sliced: Breaking Beats Down Main MenuBreaking Down: The Emotions' "Blind Alley" (Stax, 1972)Breaking Down: Sly and the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song" (1968)Joseph Schloss dissects Sly and the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song"Breaking Down: Cypress Hill's "How I Could Just Kill a Man"Breaking Down: The Impressions' "My Deceiving Heart"Breaking Down: The Souls of Mischief's "A Name I Call Myself" (1993)Oliver Wang918df11fe894a275490c89b013e2201b6eff6a54Loren Kajikawa8a2c7f4e0e5b2e790c0572a2adabcbdd73c09bf4Joseph Schloss0f83890ec22453923318b29cd83fe024cee91d9aBack to Soul Sides
The Impressions: My Deceiving Heart
12016-08-14T17:08:18-07:00Oliver Wang918df11fe894a275490c89b013e2201b6eff6a547811Originally released by Curtom in 1969 on 7" and on "The Young Mods' Forgotten Story" LPplain2016-08-15T00:12:17-07:00Oliver Wang918df11fe894a275490c89b013e2201b6eff6a54
1media/dh-large.jpeg2016-08-14T20:01:16-07:00Breaking Down: The Impressions' "My Deceiving Heart"38plain2016-08-15T13:38:11-07:00 I've been playing a handful of Impressions songs on heavy rotation of late. Can't explain why besides the obvious, i.e. they're the best thing ever. My current favorite of the batch (and it has rotated) is "My Deceiving Heart," originally released on the 1969 LP, The Young Mods' Forgotten Story as well as on 7".
Partially why I'm so enamored with the song is how the song goes through all these little, unexpected shifts, form the gospel-influenced, piano and organ intro to how the strings and horns drop in at the first chorus and especially to how the background singers slide in during the back end of the chorus to lay some doo wop sweetness on you. On some songs, you might have a favorite part you wait to hear, again and again, but on this one? I have at least 3 or 4 of those.
One last thought: The Impressions obviously recorded a ton of incredible ballads, most of which were about crushing heartbreak yet many of them sound...happy. If you don't listen that closely to the lyrics in "My Deceiving Heart" (ok, and ignore the title while you're at it), it feels more uplifting and optimistic than a song about someone who just found out that his lover's been cheating on his ass all this time. (Of course, no song from their repertoire is as "joyous in feel yet devastating in message" as another recording from this same album: "Seven Years.") It's not that this is unique to The Impressions but I also have a hard time thinking of any other artist that turned out so many sad songs that didn't actually sound sad to me. (For best results, listen with headphones)
I've been playing a handful of Impressions songs on heavy rotation of late. Can't explain why besides the obvious, i.e. they're the best thing ever. My current favorite of the batch (and it has rotated) is "My Deceiving Heart," originally released on the 1969 LP, The Young Mods' Forgotten Story as well as on 7".