Title Fight: "Every Little Bit Hurts"

Photograph of a San Francisco street advertiser, 1890

"Every Little Bit Hurts", written by Ed Cobb for Brenda Holloway to sing in the early '60s, is a well-known song. It's been covered by Cilla Black, the Small Faces, the Spencer Davis Group, and Alicia Keys, and it was a Top 20 hit for Holloway on Motown in 1964. At that time, though, Holloway didn't want to release the song as a Motown single. She had already released "Every Little Bit Hurts" as a single on Del-Fi Records and had to be forced to re-record the song for Motown as part of her contract. I prefer the original Del-Fi version with its bare-bones bass, piano, and organ arrangement (that's the version posted below) - the Motown version lays on the weepy strings too thick. With its stately waltz time and emotive vocal from Holloway, "Every Little Bit Hurts" does a good job of communicating the feeling of trying to maintain dignity when you're a relationship that's falling apart. The repetition in the lyrics is effective, and Holloway's delivery compellingly combines resignation, indignation, and desperation.

In 2002, Jenny Toomey recorded "Every Little Bit Hurts" for her album Tempting, but it's hard to mistake this song as being a cover version, as the album's subtitle is "Jenny Toomey sings the songs of Franklin Bruno." So this is a different song, written by underrated songwriter, author, and UCLA philosophy professor Bruno, and recorded by Toomey and her friends from the band Calexico. I think Bruno is consciously borrowing from the Ed Cobb original in his use of repetition in the song's opening lines (which basically constitute the song's chorus as well), and it's a catchy little hook. Even though it's one of my favorite songs on Tempting, the song is kind of a let-down because of the awful descending melody line at the beginning of the song's brief quasi-verse sections. The verses are only really useful for the moment when they end and the chorus hook comes back, and the song builds nicely to a big finale, with Toomey repeating the final line. It's a good effort overall, but for me it doesn't come close to matching Brenda Holloway's first version of "Every Little Bit Hurts".

Winner: BRENDA HOLLOWAY

"Every Little Bit Hurts" by Brenda Holloway

"Every Little Bit Hurts" by Jenny Toomey