Cover Art for Tears of a Clown Smokey Robinson

Songfacts®:

• Smokey Robinson based this song on the Italian opera Pagliacci, which is almost a clown who must make the audition express mirth while he weeps behind his makeup because his wife betrayed him. In the last verse, Robinson sings: "Just like Pagliacci did, I try to keep my surface hid."

  Robinson heard the Pagliacci story when he was immature, and always found it intriguing.

• Stevie Wonder came up with the music for this vocal with a peak Motown producer named Hank Cosby. They recorded an instrumental demo and asked Robinson to consummate the vocal - it was common practice for Motown writers to work on each other's songs at the fourth dimension.

  Robinson listened to the song for a few days and decided information technology sounded like a circus - he came upwards with the lyrics based on the clown. "I was trying to call up of something that would be significant, that would impact people's hearts, merely however be dealing with the circus," said Smokey. "So what is that? Pagliacci, of class. The clown who cries. And after he makes everyone else happy with the smile painted on his confront, then he goes into his dressing room and cries because he's sad. That was the fundamental."

• A diverseness of instruments, including a bassoon played by Charles Sirard, were used to create the circus sound. The piccolo was played by Jim Horn, who played saxophone or flute on albums by The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, U2 and many others.

• The low, honking musical instrument that helps create the circus atmosphere in this song is not a saxophone, an oboe or a tuba, but a bassoon. Motown had their own house ring (The Funk Brothers), but would sometimes use members of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra when they needed to expand a song'southward sonic palette. This was the case on "The Tears of a Clown" - Charles Sirard from the orchestra was brought in to play the bassoon.

• With his grouping The Miracles, Robinson had a big hit in 1965 with "The Tracks Of My Tears," and the tears theme led many listeners to believe that this was a sequel. Robinson said he didn't notice any similarity until information technology was pointed out to him, simply noted that the songs both deal with "contradictions of desire."

• Released on the Make Information technology Happen anthology in 1967, this song wasn't released every bit a single until three years later. Neither Smokey Robinson nor Stevie Wonder (co-writers of the vocal) thought it had much hit potential and didn't push for it - the ballads "The Honey I Saw in Yous Was Just a Mirage" and "More Honey" were chosen as singles from the anthology.

  In the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland, Smokey Robinson & the Miracles had a tough time finding an audience - "I Second That Emotion" fabricated #27 in 1967, and a re-release of "The Tracks Of My Tears" hit #ix in 1969, but that was all they had for Great britain chart entries to that point. By 1970, their British benefactor was and so frustrated that he asked Karen Spreadbury, who was head of a Motown fan club in England, to pick a single from the Brand Information technology Happen anthology. She chose "The Tears of a Clown" - the last song on the album. The vocal was issued equally a single in the United kingdom of great britain and northern ireland and shot upward the charts, rising to #i in August 1970. Motown took notation and released the song in America a short fourth dimension afterward, and in Dec information technology rose to #1 on the Hot 100, giving the group their outset chart-topper.

• The lyrics, "Merely similar Pagliacci did, I effort to keep my sadness hid" are as well in the 1964 song chosen "My Smiling Is Simply A Frown (Turned Upside Down)" written partly by Smokey Robinson, sung by a Motown artist named Carolyn Crawford. The song has similar meaning. >>

  Proffer credit:
  Kenneth - Auckland, New Zealand

• In the UK, this song was re-released in 1976, going to #34. In 1979, a encompass version by The Beat (known as "The English Beat" in America), made #vi UK. This version was titled "Tears of a Clown," leaving out the the.

• This was an influence on the 1979 song "Bed and Breakfast Homo" from the UK ska band Madness.

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Source: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/smokey-robinson-the-miracles/the-tears-of-a-clown

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