While The Counting Goes On….

Appreciating an Underloved Philly Soul Gem

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No playlist today, just a single track: “People Make The World Go Round,” the 1971 hit by the Stylistics. Written by Thom Bell and Linda Creed, it’s included on the recent Ready Or Not, an expansive UK collection devoted to Bell’s work as composer, arranger, producer and architect of so much radiant Philadelphia soul.

“People Make The World Go Round” might not be Bell’s greatest accomplishment – arguably that’s his intricate arrangement on the O’Jays’ “Backstabbers.”

But as cable news looped its unremarkable, low-drama footage of vote-counting at the Philadelphia Convention Center and elsewhere this week, I kept thinking of “People Make The World Go Round” as a fitting soundtrack – a big-hearted expression of pop sweetness beamed from the endlessly inventive early 1970s to soothe the weary and the wary. Like so many hits from that era, it’s a charm offensive that operates as contemplative message music at the same time. Even if the messages are so subtle they’re easy to miss.

Those election visuals synchronized well with the detailed, crisply minimal orchestration Bell created for the Stylistics. We watched ordinary people working in a very deliberate way to ensure that all of these ordinary voices could be heard at this extraordinary moment. Sometimes the totals flashing on the screen went in one direction, sometimes in the other. The pundits did their ritual gyrations. We waited for clarity. As the song says: “That’s what makes the world go round…the ups and downs….a carousel.”