The Shirelles - Foolish Little Girl (1963/2009)

"Foolish Little Girl" was the Shirelles' last big hit, reaching the Top Ten in 1963. Somehow it's not as highly esteemed as the Shirelles' other huge smashes like "Baby It's You," "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?," and "Soldier Boy," perhaps because it's one of their more innocuous chart singles, though it's a very enjoyable girl-group effort nonetheless. It opens with a light guitar strum and an almost campily matter-of-fact, stern spoken section which, though rarely noted, anticipates the kind of spoken passages that would be so frequently employed by the Shangri-Las a little later. Then it's into the main verse, highlighted by a sad but catchy Brill Building pop-rock melody and an eerie, cheesy organ that would rarely pass quality control in later years, but has a difficult-to-recreate period magic of its own. The melody gets brighter and more happy-go-lucky in the bridge, which contrasts as well to the almost scolding tone of the verse, in which the singer lectures about a heartbreaker in an "I told you so" vein. A big hook of the bridge that no doubt helped sell the single and implant itself in listener's memories was the back-and-forth vocal tradeoffs between the heartbroken girl, singing in an especially naive and high voice about how she still loved the scoundrel, only to be chided by a backup chorus reminding her of what a heel the guy was. The bridge's tension built with an upward key change and a definitive, almost chanted statement of how he was getting married tomorrow and it was time to move on. The fadeout was also effective, with the assertive lead voice telling the jilted woman to forget about her ex-lover, to be answered by the repeated plaintive, almost sighing rejoinders from the high-voiced singer maintaining she still loved him. Probably the songwriters didn't have this in mind, but in this way the lyrics reflected the conscious and subconscious struggles in many people's minds (male and female) at the end of an affair -- one dominant part angry and determined to forget about it, the other clinging to an affection that hasn't quite run its course.

1.01 - The Shirelles - Foolish Little Girl (2:17)
1.02 - The Shirelles - Don't Say Goodnight And Mean Goodbye (2:35)
1.03 - The Shirelles - Not For All The Money In The World (2:20)
1.04 - The Shirelles - I Didn't Mean To Hurt You (2:17)
1.05 - The Shirelles - Abra Ka Dabra (2:14)
1.06 - The Shirelles - Hard Times (2:21)
1.07 - The Shirelles - I Don't Think So (2:34)
1.08 - The Shirelles - Only Time Will Tell (2:46)
1.09 - The Shirelles - Ooh Poo Pah Doo (2:18)
1.10 - The Shirelles - Talk Is Cheap (2:41)
1.11 - The Shirelles - The Twitch (2:01)
1.12 - The Shirelles - What's The Matter Baby (2:24)