Temptations – My Girl

I was driving my 1966 Mustang back in 1983 and I had a cassette tape player with a tape I made. This song and Cloud 9 was on it and it went with me everywhere. Later on, while going through breakups with girlfriends…the Temptation songs were with me all the way.

It was written and produced by Smokey Robinson and Ronald White (both members of The Miracles), and the song became a breakthrough for The Temptations and Motown Records. Smoky supposedly wrote the song for his wife Claudette. It was written for David Ruffin’s voice and it worked perfectly. They had some hits before this one but none were #1 in the Billboard 100 and R&B charts. 

The recording featured the one and only Funk Brothers, Motown’s house band, who laid down the smooth, soulful track like always. The song’s most memorable musical features are James Jamerson’s bassline and Robert White’s guitar riff…I would throw in David Ruffin as well. It’s a simple riff but sometimes simple is the best…it sticks with you. The song peaked at #1 on the Billboard 100, #1 on the Billboard R&B Charts, #6 in Canada, and #43 in the UK in 1964-65.

The song has been used in countless films, TV shows, and commercials. It’s one of the most well-known songs of the 20th century. In 2017, it was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress for being “culturally, historically, or artistically significant.”

My Girl

I’ve got sunshine, on a cloudy dayWhen it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May (ooh)I guess you’d sayWhat can make me feel this way?

My girl, my girl, my girlTalkin’ ’bout my girl, my girl

I’ve got so much honey, the bees envy meI’ve got a sweeter song, than the birds in the treesWell, I guess you’d sayWhat can make me feel this way?

My girl, my girl, my girlTalkin’ ’bout my girl, my girl

Ooh, oohHey-hey-hey, hey-hey-heyOoh, ooh, yeah

I don’t need no money (ooh), fortune, or fameI’ve got all the riches, baby (ooh) one man can claimWell, I guess you’d sayWhat can make me feel this way?

My girl, my girl, my girlTalkin’ ’bout my girl, my girl(Talkin’ ’bout my girl)

I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day (whoa, whoa) with my girlI’ve even got the month of May, with my girl (talkin’ ’bout my girl)Talkin’ ’bout, talkin’ ’bout, talkin’ ’bout my girl (ooh)Ooh, my girl (talkin’ ’bout my girl)That’s all I can talk about is my girl (ooh)Why don’t you believe she’s all my girl? (Talkin’ ’bout my girl)

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

54 thoughts on “Temptations – My Girl”

  1. Max, ’66 Mustang! WOW! That’s cool enough man…the Temps are my favorite all-time group even though I was a little kid in their peak & their last ‘Top 40’ hit was in ’75 when I was 10. That’s how much of an influence they had on me.

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    1. Yep…my mom got it for me for my first car. Not a good car to give a 16 year old…. I so wish I would have kept that car back then!
      I got to see them in the 80s…they were great!

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      1. Lee Iacocca special…wow, you were the man cruisin’ on Friday & Saturday nights. I never saw the Temptations when they had more than 1 original member…can’t remember seeing them as a kid. I would’ve certainly remembered.

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      2. I snuck in a Temptations and Four Tops show at Opryland when it was opened…my friend and I knew the backways and we snuck in because it was sold out. I wasn’t missing it.
        It was the early to mid 80s so no it wasn’t original members…at least not a lot.
        Yea that car was cool…but remember…in the early eighties…it was still just an old car….not considered a classic.

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      3. Ok, okay…well it was nicer than what I was driving back then…lol. Dennis Edwards & Melvin Franklin & Otis Williams were probably still in the group when you guys saw ’em. The Four Tops were always originals until Levi died. What a story & what a memory it must be. Almost like me seeing the Spinners in ’73 at Disneyland on my 9th birthday. We won’t ever forget those performances will we.

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      4. Yes it was probably close to that. It was like seeing a greatest hits concert…everything they did we had heard before.

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      5. Ya’, those were the days Max when we were in our late teens/early 20’s. A special time in modern day ‘Pop Music’ because it was only about 30 years old then & a lot of the performers from the 50’s & 60’s were still around & on their game still.

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      6. I worked at a place where I was a stock boy when I graduated high school…it was tuned into the oldies channel in Nashville…that is where I learned a lot from the 60s…excluding Beatles who I knew.

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  3. a song that stands the test of time, as do quite a few of those Motown ’60s hits. They had an incredible assembly of talent from writers to singers to the Funk Bros playing it (unfortunately largely anonymously)

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    1. I can’t believe I never blogged it before but I hadn’t…6 Temptation songs but not this one? Anyway I’m glad I got this one in. I’m listening to a lot of early sixties right now.

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      1. Early-mid 60s is the golden time for Motown and those American acts good and strong enough to not get swept away by the British invasion. By ’65 it was ‘ta-ta, by-bye and farewell’ to the Fabians and Troys who’d warbled their banal ballads to the clean-cut preppy boys and pretty blue-eyed girls.

        Yep, that Mustang would be worth a bucketload now! Hindsight can be a painful thing.

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      2. Thank goodness this music wiped that prep stuff out of the way.
        I learned to work on cars with that Mustang. Of course it does not translate to the complicated (even for mechanics) and no room to work on…cars of now.

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      3. Ironically as I read these new comments, Gaye & Terrell blast out on our TV as my sweetie is 2/3 asleep & so I just put on a ’60s music one. There was a huge storehouse of talent in Detroit back then

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  4. One of my all time favorite songs. As a Mets fan, I appreciate that Francisco Lindor used it as his walk-up music (as a tribute to his wife and daughters) and during the playoffs this year it became a sing-along for Mets fans.

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    1. That is really cool him using this song. I’m not nor will never be a Yankees fan…but Paul O’Neill used Baba O’Riley which I admired as well.

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    1. My mom…should have NEVER got me that car. It cost her a $1000 dollars in 83. I didn’t know what I had because they were not considered classic yet….oh I wished I would have kept that car!

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  9. Nothing more to add, really. It deserves the full-blown Library Of Congress treatment. I love David Ruffin’s voice, especially his song “My Whole World Ended (The Moment You Left Me)”.

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  12. In my book, The Temptations are harmony singing perfection. I’ve always loved that song.

    It’s amazing a version of the Temps is still touring, some 64 years after they were formed, including one co-founding member: 83-year-old Otis Williams. They’re scheduled to perform at a close-by theater in mid-December, together with the current version of The Four Tops who earlier this year lost their last original member Duke Fakir.

    I saw both groups in November 2021. It was an old school-style soul show – just beautiful!

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      1. I had a friend in high school whose parents bought him a ’65 Mustang; almost new. He did not seem like the Mustang type, but he became more popular. My brother had two friends (identical twins) with (new) identical twin ’64 Mustangs with vanity plates. My brother bought a new ’67 Shelby GT 350. He borrowed money from my sister to buy it, then from me to pay her back when she went to college. I never got to drive it, but wanted to insist, claiming partial ownership. He paid me back when I went to college.

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      3. He eventually sold it. I don’t know if it still exists. He later (1990s) bought another, paid someone to restore it, and raffled it off to earn money for research into the disease his daughters had. I didn’t win. I expect that one still exists. I bought him a scale model of his first one (in the same color) for Christmas a few years ago (along with his ’56 Ford Crown Victoria Skyliner, also in its original colors).

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      4. That was wonderful of him to do that…That was a selfless thing to do and I admire when people do that.
        I still wish he would have let you drive the original. Great Christmas gift…someone gave me a 66 model car. I can’t remember if mine was was a 66 1/2 model. I never knew what the 1/2 stood for…I would think the generation.

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      5. Sometimes they would introduce mid-year model changes (in those days, new models always came out in the fall – so a ’65 would come out in fall of ’64). The original Mustang was introduced in the spring and was called a 1964 ½.

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      6. Oh ok…I never looked that up…that makes sense now. I never could tell the difference much between 64-66…but in 67 it changed.

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