Title Fight: "Merry-Go-Round"

Cover illustration of Bruce Marshall's The World, the Flesh and Father Smith, 1947

I'm going to start by saying that, to narrow this down to two favorites, I had to disqualify the Replacements' "Merry Go Round" for one obvious reason - no hyphens! Also, now might not be the right time to out myself as a fan of All Shook Down. As a result, our match today pairs up a pre-1960 doo-wop "apple" against an obscure '90s indie-rock "orange".

Eddie Holland's "Merry-Go-Round" was one of the very first singles released on the legendary Tamla Records - it came out in early 1959. Holland had the looks and voice to be a star, and he knocked his first few singles out of the park (I particularly like this one and "Jamie"), but he never really had a big hit. Until he started to write hits (dozens of them) for the later Motown stars as part of Holland-Dozier-Holland, that is. His feel for lyrics can be heard in his delivery of this Barry Gordy composition - the dude sounds really heartbroken. His plaintive question, "Why is love a merry-go-round?" is sung powerfully, and the backup vocals by the Rayber Voices nicely fill an arrangement that doesn't have the instrumental oomph of later-era Motown. The sound is a little murky because the master tape of this single has been lost, but I kind of like the warm fuzzy sound of it.

It's hard to compare a classic pop song like that with Versus' "Merry-Go-Round". In the mid-90s, I was willing to give anything a try if it was "indie" - I can think of no other explanation for why I would have picked up Dead Leaves, a singles-and-outtakes collection by the NY band Versus, who I knew nothing about at the time. I was immediately enamored of the CD's prickly, off-kilter pop, though - I was disappointed when I started listening to Versus' actual albums later and didn't get the same feel. One of my favorites from the start was "Merry-Go-Round", a peculiar song about not being able to hold down a day job. It has an awkward verse melody that grates a little, but the pulsing guitar of the verse bursts into a nice jangly chorus - the two-guitar-solo section in the middle is fun as well, especially the buzzing second solo with handclaps. A stitched-together song with some awkward seams showing, it's still more than the sum of its parts.

I think this one is pretty close on the merits of the two songs, but I'm going to give the win to Versus purely for nostalgia value. That guitar jangle reminds me of some good times.

Winner: VERSUS

"Merry-Go-Round" by Eddie Holland

"Merry-Go-Round" by Versus