Appreciation of The Temptations, “Just My Imagination”
The Temptations, “Just My Imagination” (Tamla Motown)
It’s a tango. The tango is the most passionately romantic of dances, but slowed down and sweetened like this, it’s the sound of dancing with a fantasy. Soon there’s a gentle touch of marimba, like a tropical breeze coming through the window — a sigh for an imaginary Caribbean honeymoon.
Much of the main melody is in triplets. “Each DAY through my WINdow I WATCH her as SHE passes by.” It’s a sleepy feel, slightly off the beat, perfectly suited for the floating quality of Eddie Kendricks’s alto voice. Those first lines are echoed with variation by a harp, suggesting an imaginary wedding. French horns appear in unison with the line “Is truly a dream come true,” a foreshadowing of the classy Philadelphia Soul to come later in the ’70s. The French horns are followed by an unfolding string section (members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra): “Out of all the fellows in the world,/She belongs to me.” All of these instruments are introduced in the first section of the first chorus, element by element, alternating the lead like dancers in a tango. The effect isn’t one of crowding or pretentious overproduction, it’s the effect of an expanding fantasy.
In the first chorus, after the line “running away with me,” the cellos “run around” with a circular motif. Then with “It was just my imagination,” the higher strings quote “Catch a Falling Star and Put It in Your Pocket,” a lovely melody and a reminder of a childlike but unattainable daydream. The background singers then interject with “Soon,” which sounds a bit like “Zoom,” as if the falling star has streaked by, out of reach.
Kendricks sings the lines “a cozy little home out in the country,/With two children maybe three” in a freer rhythm, but the French horns are behind him with the “each day through my window” triplets, like an insistent reminder of reality. The French horn phrase doesn’t end, it dissolves into the strings and harp while Kendricks sings “I can visualize it all,” just as the dream dissolves with the reminder it all started with a look through the window. The cellos pick up the same melodic phrase and gently put it back down. It’s a breathtakingly beautiful and ingenious chart from arranger Jerry Long. Then it gets even better.
There is an extraordinary bridge to the last chorus at 2:30. The tango rhythm is more pronounced, accented by the Argentinian feel in the strings and light percussion. The vocalist changes to Paul Williams for just one line (perhaps the one flaw in this otherwise perfect record): “Every night on my knees I pray.” There is a masterful unity of melody and rhythm, a counterpoint between the high vocals and the low quiet sound of the timpani, in the lines “Her love is heavenly/When her arms enfold me/I hear a tender rhapsody.”
Then at 3:05 comes a moment of sophisticated rhythmic phrasing that only a musician with a flawless sense of timing, feel, and drama would be able to pull off. I’ve never heard a cover of “Just My Imagination” that even attempts to match it. In the lyrics, it’s the tragic emotional climax of the song: “But in reality/She doesn’t even know me.” It’s a moment of regret, self-awareness, embarrassment, and perhaps just a hint of personal challenge. Kendricks underplays it, and he almost whispers it as a reluctant confession to the listener. He goes into something like half time for the words “She doesn’t even,” dragging gentle triplets across the stiff tango rhythm and the sternly judgmental timpani. “Know” slurs, rises up in the melody, and comes back down on the “me,” just a fraction of a second behind the beat. This sets up a reentry of the drum kit with a rim shot that sounds like a clock ticking once again, taking us out of the hazy fantasy and back to mortal life. If the “me” had landed exactly on the beat, the effect would have been ruined. This was Kendricks’s last recording session with the Temptations, and it is perhaps his finest moment.
Is it just my imagination, or is this the most elegantly written, arranged, and performed pop song of the last 50 years?
(Originally published on the Arts Fuse, May 5, 2021)
