The first time I heard this song was when The Clash did it as the lead track on their Cost Of Living EP in 1979. Before long it sent me back to this, the original hit by the Bobby Fuller Four.

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Who was the first white artist signed to Motown? Well I always thought it was R.Dean Taylor, the Canadian who sang the great Indiana Wants Me (and Gotta See Jane and There’s A Ghost In My House). It wasn’t. I’m not sure who it was but Debbie Dean was their first female solo artist back in 1960.

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This has to be one of the best Motown deep cuts – the solitary single released on Motown by Linda Griner. The schoolgirl singer from Washington D.C. was spotted by Smokey Robinson, who also wrote the song (with The Miracles on backing vocals).

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Growing up, I knew this song as a hit single for The Carpenters in 1975. For older pop fans, it’s Motown’s first number one single by one of the first girl groups, The Marvelettes, from 1961.

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Inspired by my birthday trip back to Belfast – and today’s ambulance strike – here is what must surely be Van Morrison’s finest moment. It’s certainly his most emotionally intense.

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This was the first big hit for Motown founder Berry Gordy (I think), and the first big hit for songwriting trio Holland-Dozier-Holland (I think) and the first big hit for Martha Reeves & The Vandellas (for sure).

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Here is a classic sixties song that I had never heard until a version by Misty Miller popped up in Lena Dunham’s excellent medieval comedy Catherine Called Birdy and sent me delving for the original.

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When I first heard Nina Simone sing this, and for a long time afterwards, I thought she was singing about a “Sea Lion Woman.” Some time later I found out that the song title, which appeared as the B-side of Mississippi Goddam, is actually See-Line Woman.

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Not only is this one of the catchiest songs of all time but the story behind the song is remarkable… and lives up to the title.

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It’s hard not to shudder when you hear the words ‘girl group’ and ‘Phil Spector’ in the same sentence these days but The Paris Sisters seemed to survive the experience.

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