Box Tops – Soul Deep

I had a Box Tops greatest hits and I wore this one out. The Box Tops had quite a few good singles. This one only peaked at #18 but I like the intro and the guitar in this one.

5 Questions with Gary Talley of The Box Tops - Gainesville Times

I’ve told this story at some point but it was a long time ago. A bizarre personal story…a one-in-a-million mistake…Back in the 90s, I tried calling a recommended musician (Gary something) to play in our band but dialed the wrong number and talked to another Gary. After a while after being confused…he told me I think you want another Gary. He said my name is Gary Talley. He was the guitar player for the Box Tops and we talked for a good 45 minutes.

He laughed and told me that I had at least reached a guitar player named Gary… but in Nashville, my odds were good getting one with any number. He was really cool and we talked about guitars, Alex Chilton, his touring, etc… He was giving guitar lessons at the time.  He told me that other people have called him looking for Garry Tallent the bass player for Bruce Springsteen. I sure wish I had taken lessons just to meet him. Where ever you are now Gary…thanks for being a super guy to a young foolish person who dialed the wrong number. He seemed surprised when I started to tell him my favorite Box Tops songs because I was in my early 20s.

A song by the Box Tops and their teenage lead singer Alex Chilton. This song peaked at #18 in 1969 on the Billboard 100, #9 in Canada, and #22 on the UK charts. This has always been my favorite song by them. It was not as big as “The Letter” or “Cry Like a Baby” but it was their last top twenty hit.

A couple of years after this Alex Chilton would be playing in Big Star. His voice in this compared to Big Star doesn’t compute…the song was written by Wayne Carson-Thompson. He was a country musician, songwriter, and producer. Below is the Eddy Arnold version a year after The Box Tops.

Soul Deep

Darlin’ I don’t know much
I know I love you so much
A lot depends on your touch
My love is a river running soul deep
A way down inside me it’s a soul deep
Too big to hide, can’t be denied
Love is a river running soul deep

I worked myself to euphoria
Just to show I adore ya
There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for ya
Cause my love is a river running soul deep
A way down inside me it’s a soul deep
Too big to hide, can’t be denied
Love is a river running soul deep

All I ever, ever hoped to be
Depends on your love for me
If you believe me, if you should leave me
I’d be nothing but a jilted male
I know darned well, I could tell, but

I don’t know much
I know I love you so much
A lot depends on your touch
My love is a river running soul deep
A way down inside me it’s a soul deep
Too big to hide, can’t be denied
Love is a river running soul deep
My love is a river running soul deep
A way down inside me it’s a soul deep
My love is a river running soul deep
A way down inside me it’s a soul deep
My love is a river running soul deep
A way down inside me it’s a soul deep

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball fan, old movie and tv show fan... and a songwriter, bass and guitar player.

75 thoughts on “Box Tops – Soul Deep”

  1. Now thats a great backstory. Dialling the wrong number and it ends up being a guy your familiar with. lol. You should have hit him up about joining your band. Hang up the phone dial another wrong number and you may have gotten Tallent as your bass player!

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  2. Would Gary Talley have been able to give you lessons for playing the bass guitar, as I don’t know how that works. Great story Max as I know Alex Chilton is one of your idols. Was this song written by the whole group or just some of the members?

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      2. When I first heard Nashville Cats the person I was with said it was a put down song on Nashville. I told him no…to me it sounds like a tribute…which of course it is. I love that song.

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  5. that is such a cool and bizarre story! One that if it was written into a movie or something, people would say ‘oh give me a break! As if!’… shows fact is stranger than fiction at times. Quite a good song, and it shows me I know more than just ‘The Letter’ by them… that would be the only one that instantly came to mind.

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    1. Dude I even don’t believe it happened at times…what are the odds??? Both named Gary! I wish I would have stayed in touch with him…I should have taken a lesson just to meet him

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  10. Serendipity is a great thing, isn’t it?

    The Box Tops did one of my favorite songs, “Neon Rainbow.” It was a whole lot different from the rest of their songs, which is (I guess) why it was never a big hit. They were an excellent “blue-eyed soul” band…

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    1. I’d have to agree on ‘Neon Rainbow’ but there are a few that come in a close second, ‘Sweet Cream Ladies,’ ‘I Met Her In Church ‘ ‘727.’ They were a – sad bad pun coming, but true- top pop band.

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  11. Good song; I’d never heard the Arnold one, but it shows there’s good bones to the song.
    Also, I loved the sitar jangle/twang that infuses a few of the Box Tops songs.
    Love the true story aspect. Life, eh? Stranger than fiction.

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  13. Max, your Gary Talley is amazing! And what a crazy coincidence that not only did he happen to be well known but also was a member of a band you liked. Best of all, it sounds like he was a really nice guy!

    “The Letter” and “Cry Like a Baby” are the only tunes by the Box Tops I could name. I love both. “Soul Deep” sounds nice as well!

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    1. Wasn’t that something man! You can’t make stuff like that up. I just so wished I would have taken the lesson.
      Yea I really like this song a lot. The feel of it is great.

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  15. I saw these guys in Memphis in 1965 before they hit it big. They played a country club dance and my buddy, who’s aunt lived in Memphis, not far from Graceland got us into her club. They were a tight band that didn’t belong in that sitting. Alex Chilton was a whit Otis Redding, if you can imagine that. My buds cousin also played in a local band called The Gentry’s that had a one hit wonder, Keep On Dancing and then faded into obscurity. We kept on visiting Memphis every summer until 1970.

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    1. Chilron was something else… he had that rich voice but when he joined Big Star he sang completely different.
      I had a Gentry’s single from a cousin… Cinnamon Girl… the Neil Young song.

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  16. I’d seen your wrong number story once before, and it’s great to be reminded. What a great guy to tell you who he really was and have a conversation with you. That Box Tops song was too catchy not to enjoy. I haven’t heard it in ages.

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    1. Yea I used it a while back on a different Box Tops song and you were one of the few readers so I used it again. BTW… this weekend I’m going to search hard for that…it’s a mission now.

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      1. Good luck on the mission. I’m trying to think of new ways to search for it. I still can’t believe it doesn’t come up when I search that opening phrase. It makes no sense that it has disappeared from everyone’s memory.

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      10. I don’t understand why it didn’t come up when we searched….I couldn’t find anything from the seventies except the SHR one.

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      16. Wow, you found it! How did you search for it? That is definitely the song I was remembering, but I’m not sure it’s the same version. I wonder if there was more than one recording. With the title now, I ought to be able to find out. I’m curious, do you remember hearing this song back then?

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      17. PS now I see you added ‘lyrics’. Good tip! This may be the first time ever that I couldn’t find a song by merely searching for a phrase.

        On another search and listen to the Gladstone recording, it must surely be the one I’m remembering; not another version. Thanks so much for joining in on the search. 😀 Wow, finally I’m hearing it again.

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      20. It surprised me on how fast she found it. I put quotations around the complete phrase which that is the reason I didn’t find it last weekend.

        It was one of those AM radio songs…but this one I’m not sure I heard before.

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      21. Yeah, she found it almost immediately. 😮 I searched with and without quotes, and I put ‘song’ with it like you did. I didn’t think of using ‘lyrics’. I’m assuming the song didn’t get airplay in some places because of the content. I’d forgotten the specifics it covered, except for the draft verse.

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      23. In reading the exchanges, you were very specific about the opening lyrics, which definitely excluded Schoolhouse.

        You may be right about different versions. When Gladstone came up, I couldn’t even find that group in Wiki. And, to have that song show up on some compilation album, where none of the songs seem to match a theme or time frame…

        And, no…I’d never heard it before but, I know how it feels to have a song stuck in your head and you can’t find it…and your sanity hangs in the balance. I have so much music stuck in my head from listening to my parents big console stereo system. It has just been recently that I heard the Lord’s Prayer on SiriusXM from some odd group that I remember hearing on the radio as a kid in the early 70s. The Lord’s Prayer, now…a chant/song, used for 1000s of years and I can’t seem to find the group of women that sang that in the 70s.

        Hopefully, with the name of the song, you can find your version.

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      24. I now think the Gladstone version is indeed the one I’m remembering, and maybe the only one there was. I had to listen to it a few times, and read the Youtube comments.

        I remember that Lord’s Prayer from the early 70s. I can hear bits of it in my head now. I’ll have to look it up. 😀

        Liked by 1 person

  17. I remember hearing this on the radio. And, you are right. Chilton’s voice from The Letter to this, he has lost his “gravel growl” voice. Did he have vocal chord problems?

    The “wrong Gary” story is new to me. Talk about lightning striking. Nice guy. I’m guessing, judging by some of the comments, that you could throw a dart in Nashville and hit a musician, nearly anywhere.

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    1. No I don’t think he lost it…he changed it…it’s Big Star where he completely changed it…listen to “September Gurls” and that is him…but nothing like this or The Letter.

      Wasn’t that a cool story? I still can’t believe it…the odds are crazy finding another Gary lol that played guitar.

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  19. Pingback: Box Tops – Soul Deep – MobsterTiger

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