Skip to main content. Little Anthony, The Imperials. From the Album Memories of Sixties. Listen Now. Your Amazon Music account is currently associated with a different marketplace. Additional taxes may apply.
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Skip to main content. Goin' Out Of My Head. MP3 Music, January 1, "Please retry".
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I first heard of Little Anthony and the Imperials via Tom Waits, who namechecked them on Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis , a witty but maudlin lounge ballad typical of Waits's pre-Swordfishtrombones low-life schtick. The character in the song has endured tragedy and heartbreak, but lived to tell the tale. By contrast, the narrators of Little Anthony and the Imperials' songs — titles include I'm on the Outside Looking In and Hurt So Bad — are invariably caught in the middle of intense lovelorn woe. Goin' Out of My Head sounds sweet and innocent, but as the title suggests, it's a song about a moment on the edge of sanity. In fact scores of artists have covered the song, but none can match the vulnerability of Little Anthony and the Imperials' original, the grandeur of that sound. Forged in the tough projects of Brooklyn, the Imperials started out as a doo-wop group and scored a hit in the late 50s with Tears on My Pillow. By the early 60s doo-wop groups were passe, but after some lineup changes the Imperials hit a purple patch, enjoying a string of hits written, arranged and produced by Gourdine's childhood friend Teddy Randazzo. Randazzo's brilliance lay in marketing the group not at teenagers, but at adult sophisticates. Taking a cue from Burt Bacharach, Little Anthony and the Imperials' speciality was huge orchestral pop, dramatised with triplets and cavernous timpani drums.
I first heard of Little Anthony and the Imperials via Tom Waits, who namechecked them on Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis , a witty but maudlin lounge ballad typical of Waits's pre-Swordfishtrombones low-life schtick. The character in the song has endured tragedy and heartbreak, but lived to tell the tale. By contrast, the narrators of Little Anthony and the Imperials' songs — titles include I'm on the Outside Looking In and Hurt So Bad — are invariably caught in the middle of intense lovelorn woe. Goin' Out of My Head sounds sweet and innocent, but as the title suggests, it's a song about a moment on the edge of sanity. In fact scores of artists have covered the song, but none can match the vulnerability of Little Anthony and the Imperials' original, the grandeur of that sound.
