Nows and Forevers

What happens when you combine Levi Stubbs, The Four Tops, Holland/Dozier/Holland and the Motown Sound? You get this hands-down 2 minute and 40 second classic, which was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 59 years ago this week.

And, actually, I just looked it up, No. 1 two nonconsecutive weeks in a three-week period. How great a song do you have to be to reach No. 1, decline, and then coming roaring back?

Levi, the legend. That voice.

It’s hard to pick favorite Motown songs because so many of them still smoke, all these years later. You don’t think a song titled “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch” would have this much going for it, but it’s anything but inconsequential lyrically.

And that bridge. Wow.

I wish I could write as punchy and as sharp as this song, all the time.