On a different but obscurely related topic to my last LJ post (made just minutes ago), I made the following post on Facebook last night and wanted to memorialize it here, with a couple more observations:
"Midnight Train to Georgia" really is one if the greatest pop songs ever recorded. [N.B.: It won the Grammy for Best R&B Song in its year.] Never gets old. Gladys Knight recorded one for the ages. And I just love those Pips.
What I love about the Pips' back-up is that not only is it just plain awesome, it's really affirming for the narrator of the story. She's made a decision and they're behind her all the way. I think we all need Pips. G-d knows I do.
A friend responded: I totally want Pips. I never really thought about it before, but you're so right - we all need someone to soulfully sing "I know you will" when necessary. :-)
If you want to know how awesome the Pips really were, you ought to see them
doing their thing without Gladys Knight. And if you want to know how beloved they are,
here's a kind of spoof/tribute, with Ben Stiller, Jack Black and the impossibly hot, impossibly cool Robert Downey, Jr. (Whoever directed this skit is an idiot, though. There's a gag at the end that he totally botched. It was a gag in bad taste, but his direction just made it lame, as well.)
My friend is right. There are days when we all need that back-up chorus validating our choices. (And, you know, if they all looked and moved a little more like RDJ, I would so totally not mind.) Today is one of those days.