"Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell

Song 47:

"Ain't Nothing Like the Real Thing" by Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell

Peak: 8

Year: 1968

Year end position: 57

Alphabetical Songs by Artist: 2/25

Chronological Songs by Artist: 13/25

Video?: No

Wikipedia?:  Yes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain't_Nothing_Like_the_Real_Thing

Spotify?:  Yes

Lyrics:  http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/marvingaye/aintnothingliketherealthing.html

If you are following along, you may be thinking, “Hey, didn’t we just have a song by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell”?  Why yes, we did.  Just a week ago, we had “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”, which was our first two-artist song.  Back then, I expressed how surprised I was that that song only reached #19, given its popularity since.  Apparently, America was more primed to accept the Marvin and Tammi a year later when this song came around because it made it all the way to #8.  This was the 4^th duet between Marvin and Tammi to hit the charts from 1967-1968.

I was curious about the quick turnaround between an artists first and second songs alphabetically, since Marvin only has 7 songs between his first and second.  I wanted to know if that was a record.  After some searching, it turns out that it is not.  There are two artists that have their first and second songs appear consecutively.  Enrique Iglesias’s first two songs, “Bailamos” and “Bailando” are back to back in alphabetical order, and Dickie Goodman’s “Flying Saucer” and “Flying Saucer the 2^nd” are also back to back.  The last one is a bit of a cheat, but it technically counts.  So, pretty quick for Marvin, but record-setting quick.

The similarities between “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” aren’t limited to the singers and similar title structure.  They both were written by the same writing team of Ashford & Simpson.  If you remember that post, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” was to be their gateway song to Motown records.  I’d say they accomplished their goal and established themselves as formidable hit makers.

I was searching the internet to see if there was a connection between this song and the Coca-Cola advertising campaign of Coke as “The Real Thing”.  I found out that that particular campaign started for Coke in 1969, just one year after this song charted, but I couldn’t find anything that said that one was influenced by the other.  It seems unlikely to me that they weren’t, since the phrasing is almost exactly the same.  It’s entirely possible that I wasn’t looking hard enough for that link.

I know I’ve said in the past that a big part of the reason why I like following the charts is what they can tell you about the times when the songs came out.  This song is a good example of that.  There’s nothing specifically dated about this song, like references to things that no longer exist.  The message of the song is pretty universal to any time period.  The thing that makes this song somewhat indicative of the times is if you think of the theme of the song in the context of the Vietnam War.

The song is about two people, a man and a woman that are separated.  The first verse is sung by Tammi Terrell, and she is explaining how she has a picture of her love.  Marvin Gaye comes in and he has the letters that she wrote to him.  They both come to the same conclusion that these things are just poor substitutes for the actual person.  This theme is repeated for the rest of the song.  In the last verse, Marvin is talking about his memories and saying “I’m well aware nothin’ can take the place of your being there.”

If you put this song in the context of the Vietnam War, it makes the song more poignant.  It’s not hard to imagine a soldier in the field reading a letter from his girlfriend, or that same girl looking at a picture and longing for the real person to be there.  Another thing that makes this song a little dated is that modern technology has made it much, much easier to stay in contact, even from half away around the world.  That doesn’t take anything away from the heartfelt emotion of this song in my opinion.

This song really works well as a duet between a man and a woman.  I’ve heard that there is a version that Donny and Marie Osmand sang.  That sounds a little strange to me, as I don’t really feel the brother / sister dynamic happening in this song.