I Second That Emotion

This is Smokey Robinson operating at the precise intersection of wit and feeling that defines his very best work. The production is early Motown economy at its most elegant — tambourine, walking bass, a horn arrangement that punctuates rather than decorates, and a rhythmic bounce that makes the whole thing feel effortless even though every element is exactly placed. Robinson's voice here is younger, almost conspiratorially playful, and he uses it to navigate a lyric that is doing something genuinely interesting: arguing the terms of romantic surrender with the logic of a gentleman debater. The song understands that love is partly a negotiation, that the moment of saying yes to someone is also the moment you hand over a certain kind of power, and it holds that ambivalence lightly rather than collapsing it into either pure joy or pure anxiety. The emotional register is warm and a little sly, the voice of someone who knows exactly what he is agreeing to and agrees anyway. This is 1965 Detroit, the assembly line of great popular music running at full capacity, and "I Second That Emotion" represents the form at its most assured — a three-minute pop record that contains an entire philosophy of intimacy. It fits the soundtrack of a kitchen where someone is cooking something that smells good, a Tuesday evening that has no particular occasion but feels, for no reason you could name, unusually alive.