Released on October 1962 “I Smiled Yesterday” was the designated A-side of Warwick’s first Scepter single and would’ve made a worthy debut. Musically more exotic than “Don’t Make Me Over,” it perks along with a French-horn flourish that contradicts its “I don’t- wanna-cry-anymore-like-I-cried-today” message.
Even more unconventional is the bridge, where Warwick sings “Every day without you is a day that's gonna turn out wrong” just seconds before she starts skipping like a broken record. By the Seventies, this familiar gimmick would be attempted by everyone from Bill Withers (“Ain’t No Sunshine”) to Squeeze (“If I Didn’t Love You”), but it was uncharted territory in 1962, as unthinkable as intentionally inserting dead air on a single. Warwick and the drummer (presumably Gary Chester) lock in and stop so deliberately over and over that by the fourth “won’t you,” you’re convinced her needle will be forever stuck in heartbreak. Possibly because of this innovative turn, no one else took a chance on recording it for fear of confounding deejays and losing valuable “needle time” on radio.
Even more unconventional is the bridge, where Warwick sings “Every day without you is a day that's gonna turn out wrong” just seconds before she starts skipping like a broken record. By the Seventies, this familiar gimmick would be attempted by everyone from Bill Withers (“Ain’t No Sunshine”) to Squeeze (“If I Didn’t Love You”), but it was uncharted territory in 1962, as unthinkable as intentionally inserting dead air on a single. Warwick and the drummer (presumably Gary Chester) lock in and stop so deliberately over and over that by the fourth “won’t you,” you’re convinced her needle will be forever stuck in heartbreak. Possibly because of this innovative turn, no one else took a chance on recording it for fear of confounding deejays and losing valuable “needle time” on radio.
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