Smokey Robinson: Great Songwriters Continued
The Tracks of My Tears:
Outside I’m masquerading
Inside my hope is fading
Just a clown oh yeah
Since you put me down
My smile is my make up
I wear since my break up with you
Bob Dylan doesn’t just call anyone “America’s greatest poet,” but he did say that about Smokey Robinson.
Born William Robinson Jr., before adopting part of the nickname “Smokey Joe ‘’ his uncle gave him, Smokey was responsible for writing some of Motwon’s best-known early material. Though most recognizable for his trademark high tenor voice that manages to be both fragile and resistant, Smokey doubled as a producer and vice president of the Motown corporation, not to mention writing nearly all of his band, The Miracles, discography. In addition to his own group, Smokey’s songs were given to other early Detroit acts like The Temptations, The Supremes, Mary Wells, and Marvin Gaye.
Like the majority of pop music, Smokey’s lyrical content focused largely on subjects of love and loss. But where he differed from a lot of his Motown peers was how he could disguise any melancholic tragedy into an upbeat, orchestral ballad, finding success in how a song could mold to the listener’s disposition. In a 1968 profile for Rolling Stone, the magazine deemed Smokey “the reigning genius of the Top 40” at just 27-years-old. In 2014, 46 years later, Smokey landed what could be his last album to place his name on the charts, indicating a career that doesn’t last from luck and circumstance, but rather immense talent and deep devotion to the thrill of rock and roll.
“The Tracks of My Tears” is at the very top of Smokey’s catalogue, often cited as an example of his best work, including by Motown founder Berry Gordy. After his first slew of hits for Motown, Gordy had told Robinson to focus on writing purposeful songs rather than only to fill up albums, aiming to cultivate individual stories that add up to a more intricate, cohesive whole. After this instruction, “The Tracks of My Tears” was born.
The genesis of the song began when Marv Tarplin, the guitarist for The Miracles, came up with a guitar part that would later become the melody of the track. It took Robinson six months to write the lyrics, but once he got the first line of the chorus,“Take a good look at my face, you see my smile looks out of place,” the song came together.
Telling the story of a man crushed by a lover’s exit, “The Tracks of My Tears” is truly a painful depiction of rejection and false appearances. It’s sadness can be forgotten in the cathartic release of the ballad it is weaved into, but like all great music, the mixture of these two components is what allows for a dynamic and rounded portrait of the human experience, expelling drama, sadness, and sincerity within three minutes.
What makes Smokey so special is his ability to write a complex notion with a minimalistic simplicity. The bridge to the song begins “Outside I’m masquerading, inside my hope is fading,” just eight words that are able to specifically outline the duality of mind and appearance in a universal capacity, while also rhyming. The verse continues “Just a clown oh yeah, since you put me down/ My smile is my makeup, I wear since my breakup with you.” He connects the feeling of being a clown to wearing metaphorical makeup as a way to mask his sadness, referencing the image of the fool in the first verse of the song.
Smokey’s lyrics may at times seem elementary: he generally doesn’t use SAT level words and can stick to a simple AABBCC and so forth rhyming pattern. In this sense appearances, like in “The Tracks of My Tears,” are completely misleading. He not only creates an interconnected narrative but finds a way to do so with plain language and catchy hooks that allows his sophisticated sentiments to reach all audiences. After all, there are few able to write a song that is chosen to be covered by the likes of Soul Asylum to Dolly Parton. But Smokey Robinson can.
