Two Lovers (Mary Wells song)

Infobox Single
Name = Two Lovers
Artist = Mary Wells
from Album = Two Lovers
Format = 7" single
B-side = Operator
Released = 1962
Recorded = Hitsville USA; 1962
Genre = Soul
Length = 2:45
Label = Motown
M 1035
Writer = Smokey Robinson
Producer = Smokey Robinson
Last single = "You Beat Me to the Punch"
(1962)
This single = "Two Lovers"
(1962)
Next single = "Laughing Boy"
(1963)

"Two Lovers" is a single released by Mary Wells on the Motown record label in 1962. The song was the third consecutive song released that was written and produced by Smokey Robinson of The Miracles as the singer-songwriter was quickly earning a reputation as a hit-making songwriter and as Wells herself had become the solo superstar of the young Motown label. The sound wasn't so different from previous hits such as "The One Who Really Loves You" and "You Beat Me to the Punch" and was a story of a girl who talked about her lover's two sides telling listeners that at one hand her lover is "sweet and kind" and in another breath saying he also "treats me bad and makes me sad" and when the lover is confused by Mary's message, she contends that the "two lovers" are him. The song charted better than the previous two reaching number-one on the Billboard R&B chart and number seven on the Billboard pop chart becoming her best showing until "My Guy" two years later.

Credits

*Lead (and additional) background vocal by Mary Wells
*Background vocals by the Love Tones
*Written and produced by Smokey Robinson
*Instrumentation by The Funk Brothers

Covers

*Dolly Parton covered the song on her ill-fated 1987 pop album "Rainbow".
*The Disney Channel featured the song in a DTV music video set entirely to clips from the 1936 Mickey Mouse cartoon "Mickey's Rival".