It's the Same Old Song

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"It's the Same Old Song"

Single by Four Tops
from the album The Four Tops' Second Album
Released	July 9, 1965
Format	7" single
Recorded	Hitsville USA (Studio A); July 8, 1965
Genre	Soul/pop
Length	2:46
Label	Motown M 1081
Writer(s)	Holland-Dozier-Holland
Producer(s)	Brian Holland Lamont Dozier
Chart positions
#5 (US Pop Singles) #2 (US R&B Singles)
Four Tops singles chronology
"I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)" (1965)	"It's the Same Old Song" (1965)	"Something About You" (1965)

"It's the Same Old Song" is a 1965 hit single recorded by The Four Tops for the Motown label. Written and produced by Motown's main production team Holland-Dozier-Holland, the song is today one of The Tops' signature songs, and was notably created--from initial concept to commercial release--in exactly 24 hours.

After "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)" hit #1 in June of 1965, The Four Tops' former label, Columbia Records, wanting to cash in on the group's success, re-released the Tops' 1960 Columbia single "Ain't That Love". A perturbed Berry Gordy ordered that a new Four Tops single had to be released within a day's time.

At 3 o' clock that afternoon, the Holland brothers and Lamont Dozier penned "It's the Same Old Song"; by 5 P.M., The Tops had recorded the song and mixing began. The engineering team worked around the clock perfecting the single's mix and making hand-cut vinyl records so that Berry Gordy's sister Esther in the Artist Development department could critique them and select the best ones for single release. By 3 P.M. the next day, 1500 copies of "It's the Same Song" had been delivered to radio DJs across the country, and the song eventually made it to #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

In the mid-1990s, The Four Tops appeared in a Velveeta commercial, where they spoofed "It's the Same Old Song" with a song called "It's Not the Same Old Side" (as in side dish).

"It's the Same Old Song" in fact is a repeat of "I Can't Help Myself" (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch). In that it uses the same notes in the same order as "I Can't Help Myself." However, the songwriters put a different beat to the tune and of course changed the lyrics.^{[citation needed]}