2 October 1970
Ireland didn’t have any number ones at all from Motown during the ’60s – and here in October 1970 we still didn’t, as despite its classic Motown sound ‘Band Of Gold’ is on Holland-Dozier-Holland’s own Invictus label after they had left Hitsville. The parting with Berry Gordy was evidently acrimonious; ongoing legal disputes meant that the H-D-H writing and production credits on ‘Band Of Gold’ are instead attributed to the pseudonyms Ron Dunbar and Edythe Wayne – names borrowed from two of their real-life employees, says Lamont Dozier in this 2015 interview.
Disharmony and deception are also themes of ‘Band Of Gold’ itself. But what exactly happened on the wedding night? Is the groom impotent, or gay, or even simply cruel? Or, at the end of a long day of church and family and reception and champagne and family and first-dancing to some godawful Westlife song and family, did he just have a metaphorical headache? Interestingly, Payne herself in the same 2015 interview says she initially understood the song’s inciting incident as the bride being young and scared, which suggests her rejection of him. (On a lesser point of intrigue, what’s the story with this other room? Had they booked a bridal suite with a second bedroom just in case? Did he bail out and slip in with a bridesmaid down the hall? Or was he just on the couch, or in the bathtub?) Even if the lyrics are just generalised melodrama rather than a coherent story, the tale of a frustrating or unhappy young marriage may well have rung a bell for many in 1970 Ireland, regardless of gender.
Since the whole song pivots on this event, your feelings for ‘Band Of Gold’ may depend on your tolerance for melodrama as entertainment. Mine is low, so for a long time this record gave me the ick. Today, I still wouldn’t necessarily listen to this by choice, and that classic Motown sound I mentioned could equally be called Holland-Dozier-Holland-by-numbers. All that said, the tune is soaring and memorable, Payne puts in a terrific performance, and I happen to love the classic Motown sound. As befits the sentiment of the song, ‘Band of Gold’ and I are patching things up. And you’ll be heartened to know that even the two Hollands eventually wrote for Motown acts again.
