Who Did It Better
Who's Lovin' You
Who's lovin' you?
Tell me who's lovin' you?
Who's Lovin' You 0:30 is the question that haunts after a breakup. He knows she left him for someone else but the curiosity eats him alive. He needs to know who took his place. The jealousy is not -- about ownership.
It is about wondering if someone else can love her better. The question is really about his own worth. Was he replaceable after everything they shared? The answer might destroy him but he needs to know.
The Original -- 1960
Smokey Robinson
the specific pain of being replaced. Smokey Robinson wrote it as a heartbreaking ballad about a man who hears that his former lover is now with someone new, and the news hits him harder than he expected. Who's lovin' you... the question is not curiosity. It is a wound. Smokey's original is built for his voice, the kind of performance that makes you forget that the Miracles were a group and remember only the lead singer's vulnerability.
That same wound gets a youthful transformation in the Jackson 5's 1969 version. Where Smokey's original is a grown man's adult heartbreak, the Jackson 5 version is delivered by a twelve-year-old who sounds like he has already lived through every heartbreak that exists. Michael's voice on this track is a revelation ... that incredible pre-adolescent instrument carrying adult emotions with such conviction that you forget how old he is. The arrangement is pure Motown, tight and energetic, but the voice is doing something the arrangement cannot contain. Where Smokey sang about being replaced as a man who had been through it before, Michael sings about it as if he is discovering the pain for the first time, and that first-time quality gives the song a different kind of power.
The Cover -- 1969
The Jackson 5
the specific pain of being replaced. Smokey Robinson wrote it as a heartbreaking ballad about a man who hears that his former lover is now with someone new, and the news hits him harder than he expected. Who's lovin' you... the question is not curiosity. It is a wound. Smokey's original is built for his voice, the kind of performance that makes you forget that the Miracles were a group and remember only the lead singer's vulnerability.
That same wound gets a youthful transformation in the Jackson 5's 1969 version. Where Smokey's original is a grown man's adult heartbreak, the Jackson 5 version is delivered by a twelve-year-old who sounds like he has already lived through every heartbreak that exists. Michael's voice on this track is a revelation ... that incredible pre-adolescent instrument carrying adult emotions with such conviction that you forget how old he is. The arrangement is pure Motown, tight and energetic, but the voice is doing something the arrangement cannot contain. Where Smokey sang about being replaced as a man who had been through it before, Michael sings about it as if he is discovering the pain for the first time, and that first-time quality gives the song a different kind of power.
Image Credits
1,414 artist portraits across 5 genres (Rock, Jazz, Soul, Blues, Folk). 1,363 sourced from Wikipedia (Creative Commons / Public Domain), 50 from Deezer (promotional artwork).
