This feature evolved out of Songs For The Pandemic. When the crisis eased, I renamed it and focused initially on sad songs. Sometimes those sad songs are set to upbeat and uptempo music. That’s the case with this week’s selection.

Since I Lost My Baby was written in 1965 by Smokey Robinson and Warren Moore. I was recently asked why Smokey gave some of his best songs to The Temptations. That’s an easy question: Smokey was a team player who also owned a piece of Motown Records. It’s called enlightened self-interest.

We begin with The Temptations original with David Ruffin and Melvin Franklin on lead vocals. The harmonies are to die for; one of many reasons I love The Temptations.

Luther Vandross had a hit with this week’s tune in 1982.

Jamaican singer Fiona cut a reggae version of the Motown masterpiece in 1999:

Angie Stone’s contribution to a Luther Vandross tribute album was a cover of Since I Lost My Baby:

Finally, Yacht Rocker Michael McDonald included the Robinson-Moore classic on his first collection of Motown numbahs.

That’s it for this week. Let’s drink to my surviving the first big weekend of Uptown parades. That’s life inside the box; parade box, that is. It’s what Mac, Irma, Allen, and Aaron would want. Never argue with them.