It's Not Eccentric ... Well, Yes It Is ...

The Rising Sun - Do What You're Doin'

For today's Friday feature I return to Numero's Outskirts of Deep City edition of the Eccentric Soul series. Usually I use the title "It's Not Eccentric; It's Awesome" for strong ballads from that series, but today's selection stays closer to the "Eccentric" end of the equation. The Miami band The Rising Sun backed Perk Badger on the lesser-known version of his "Do Your Stuff" that appeared on the comp (featured earlier on the blog), and "Do What You're Doin'" features the vocal talents of the group. It's clear that these guys had been listening to "Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)" more than a few times before they went to record this, as the song's refrain and overall feel apes the Temptations' hit.

Borrowing aside, this is a song that has a lot of nice parts: the rhythm bed is great, the lead singer has a lot of soul and the backing vocals are on-point. Despite these fine parts, though, the whole is somewhat mystifying. The bass singer is rhythmically laying down the phrase "keep on doin' what you're doin'," the background singers are repeating the line "they say that gettin' it's kinda cool now, so just keep on doin' it" (or something like that) and the lead singer is improvising around those two phrases. What are they trying to get over with the song? Probably something sensuous, but it's just not clear. My wife complains that this sounds like two or three radios are playing different stations at the same time, but I disagree. It might not make sense, but to me it sounds good! Keep on doin' ... whatever it is!