Love's Your Name - R Dean Taylor
In 1965 Motown had released R Dean Taylor's first single on the label "Let's Go Somewhere", cowritten by Taylor, Brian Holland and the latter's cousin James Dean, which was a flop. Taylor's songwriting skills, carefully nurtured by Brian Holland, had yet to mature, and the label too, hadn't established a clearly focussed musical identity for him. All that changed with the release in 1967 of his next single, the classic "There's a Ghost in my House" establishing him with his own idiosyncratic take on the Motown sound: his marauding vocals were definitely not classifiable as "soul music" and the songs themselves usually had a strong narrative or metaphorical theme. What was Motown though, was the distinctive sound of the musicians, Motown's resident band, now known as the Funk Brothers.
None of which applies to "Love's your Name", which no-one in a million years would identify as a Motown track. Taylor only had one top ten hit in the US, "Indian Wants Me", which reached number 5 on the Hot 100 in 1970, and "Love's Your Name" is its "B" side. Catchy, fun, and light and airy as blown bubbles floating away over a field "Love's Your Name" serves as a distinct relief to the grim theme of doom of its flip side, demonstrating the versatility of his writing.
The lyrics are fun too, gently uplifting with their clever rhymes, escapist as the aforementioned bubbles, something we all need in these overburdened times.
"I need you hon', when I've come undone
you pick the pieces up and you glue me
together again".
Aaaah.
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