#25 What's So Good About Goodbye -- The Miracles (1962)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wT0__VVRYOA

This one was a favorite of Weasel, back in the heyday of WHFS. It’s not one of Smokey Robinson’s better-known songs, but is certainly one of his best. (Fellow Miracle Marv Tarplin does the Duane Eddy-style guitar.) The bridge is classic Smokey:

“How can goodbye be good

To a lover who really cares

And another thing I would like to clarify

Is how can farewell be fair.”

 

#26 Someone Is Standing Outside -- Patti Austin (1988)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3Dq8SXlgfQ

Jimmy Webb was one of the hottest songwriters of the late 1960s, with hits for the Fifth Dimension (“Up, Up And Away”), Richard Harris (“MacArthur Park”), Glen Campbell (“By The Time I Get To Phoenix”, “Wichita Lineman”, “Galveston”), and others. This one was recorded by Thelma Houston (no relation to Whitney) and a few other folks around that same time, but Patti Austin really made it her own as part of her fine The Real Me album in 1988, where it actually manages to outshine her excellent versions of better-known classics such as “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes” and “Cry Me A River.”

Shuffle #28 (September 14, 2014)

I Want To Be Wanted – Brenda Lee

The Boxer – Simon & Garfunkel

Pancho & Lefty – Emmylou Harris

Sunshine Of Your Love – Cream

Particle Man – They Might Be Giants

Long Promised Road – The Beach Boys

In The Midnight Hour – Wilson Pickett

Heavy Love – David Ruffin

I Get A Kick Out Of You – Frank Sinatra