My Deceiving Heart
The Impressions
The Young Mod’s Forgotten Story, 1969
bio | discography | available on cd
This is one of my all-time favorite album titles. I’m not really tuned in to the use of the word mod (modernist?) but it seems so contradictory for something to be young, mod and forgotten.
This album came out one year before the end of Curtis Mayfield’s 12-year run performing with the Impressions. They remained on his Curtom label and he continued to write and produce for them but they quickly ended up in the shadow of his solo career.
Musically, this song has deep gospel roots (I remember picturing my grandfather’s church the first time I heard the intro) although it branches out into some lovely interplay between guitar and horns in the chorus that you would be hard-pressed to actually find in a church. Lyrically, it’s a love song although Mr. Mayfield writes a slightly tongue-in-cheek acknowledgement of the juxtaposition in the chorus, “I’m hear to testify how all the time you want me to be so blind…”
This song is a little short on responsibility (”my deceiving heart, how it’s torn us apart”) but it lends itself to some (potentially unintended) humorous lines like, “when I turned my back on you baby, I unintentionally set you free.”
The MP3 linked below is actually from the compilation Indelible Impressions 1968-1976, which I also recommend.
>> songs are available for two weeks [4.0 MB]
