Every Moment Has A Song

Spinners: “How Could I Let You Get Away” (1972)

The Spinners’ first million-selling single, the now-classic “I’ll Be Around”, was originally the B-side to “How Could I Let You Get Away” until “I’ll Be Around” began getting so much radio airplay itself that the record was flipped and this gorgeous R&B ballad became a footnote in pop history.

The album that spawned both songs, 1972’s self-titled Spinners LP, was bursting with hit singles: in addition to  #3 pop hit “I’ll Be Around” it included “Could it Be I’m Falling in Love” (#4), “One of a Kind (Love Affair)” (#11) and “Ghetto Child” (#29). “How Could I Let You Get Away” made it to #77 itself, but is seldom heard now. It would probably be a lot more familiar had it not been pressed with an all-time great song on its flipside.

“How could I Let You Get Away” was actually brought to the office door of producer Thom Bell by a woman named Yvette Davis, who told Bell, “I have some songs. I don’t have no husband. I don’t have no boyfriend. I hardly have a house. All I’ve got are some songs.”

Bell invited her in and she sang her songs without accompaniment. Bell liked “How Could I Let You Get Away” and worked up an arrangement for it.

Rolling Stone called the song “a graceful meditation on loss, growing up and the sense of the past-in-the-present”.