The Motions "Wasted Words"

THE MOTIONS-I Follow The Sun/Wasted Words Holland Havoc SH 111 1965

For those not in the know The Motions were a mid 60's Dutch band who made two brilliant LP's and a slew of cool singles before they got bland.  Eventually their guitarist Robbie Van Leeuwen split to form Shocking Blue in 1967. Like most 60's Dutch beat groups their records were sung in English.

Because this is such a serious record here's The Motions, not being serious...

In around 1988 or 1989 I was Motions mad and couldn't get enough of them. Back then there were no reissues of their LP's, CD's were barely out yet and the only place to hear their music was on dodgy compilation LP's like "Flight To Lowlands Paradise" or volumes of "Pebbles:The Continent Lashes Back" or "Searchin' In The Wilderness". Track by track I was picking up Motions songs here and there from a variety of compilation LP's. There was no Internet or E-Bay and record shows were not nearly as huge as they are now.  The bane of obscure record hunting in the late 80's was lists that dealers would mail you if you were on their "list". The other bane of my record nerd existence was from my guru Ron Rimsite.  Ron passed me on a copy of this 45, their fifth single with no picture sleeve(all the bands Dutch 45's on Havoc came in cool looking picture sleeves) and the center pressed out in a pile of singles he gave me (one of many such occasions). It's not their best 45 but it's still pretty good compared to the crap they put out after their second LP "In Their Own Way" when they went "psychedelic" in garb only. I eventually sprung for a $75 copy of their debut LP "Introduction To.. .."(thanks Uncle Pancakes) in VG+ condition but with what looked like a dog bite missed from the top right corner from Hideout Records, a basement store in New York City usually staffed by assh*les, unlike the cooler Venus Records that was staffed by the coolest of the cool (Ron Rimsite, Bobbie C and John K. to name but a few). 

"I Follow The Sun" is a somber number, not your typical Kinks meets Beatles racket that the band kicked up on their untitled debut album.  Its simple, backed by acoustic guitar and little else and has a brooding, melodic almost baroque feel to it.  The same formula applies to "Wasted Words" with a faint churchy organ added.  "Wasted Words" is a sort of protest number about Civil Rights in America and .  You don't get to hear many pop records in the 60's that name check Martin Luther King, especially from Holland!  In retrospect the lyrics are a bit corny but considering its in the band's second language I always tend to overlook them.

Both sides were collected on an essential Pseudonym Records CD collection that compiles their first two albums and singles in between.