- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- “Games People Play” is a protest song with lyrics that speak out against various forms of hatred, hypocrisy, inhumanity, intolerance, and irresponsibility.
Joe South – Games People Play (1969): Singer/songwriter Joe South (who changed his name slightly from Joe Souter) has been a long-time favorite of mine. He is a native of Atlanta and started in country music, later becoming a session player in Muscle Shoals and in Nashville, where he performed on Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde album and Simon and Garfunkel’s second album Sounds of Silence (though not the title track “The Sounds of Silence”), as well as recordings by Marty Robbins, Eddy Arnold, Aretha Franklin, and Wilson Pickett. Joe South wrote numerous songs for the country-rock singer Billy Joe Royal, including the #9 hit “Down in the Boondocks” and also “Hush”. The then newly-formed British hard rock band Deep Purple heard Billy Joe Royal’s version of “Hush” and decided that the song was ideal for their band.
While “Hush” had been a minor hit for Billy Joe Royal, “Hush” (1968) was the first hit single for Deep Purple (but not in the U.K.), reaching #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #2 in Canada. “Games People Play” was Joe South’s first hit single under his own name and won the Grammy Awards for Song of the Year and Best Contemporary Song in 1969. “Games People Play” was originally included on Joe South’s debut album Introspect (1968), along with two other songs that were repeated on Games People Play, “Birds of a Feather” and “These Are Not My People”. As is true of some of the other songs on Games People Play, “Games People Play” is a protest song with lyrics that speak out against various forms of hatred, hypocrisy, inhumanity, intolerance, and irresponsibility, in both interpersonal and social interactions between people. Charmingly, Joe South doesn’t pronounce the word “damn” in the final verse. Joe South is better known for his songwriting than his records, and he wrote all of the songs on Games People Play and was also the record producer. Several of these songs had already been recorded by other artists, such as “Hush”. “I Knew You When” was another sizable hit song for Billy Joe Royal, while “Untie Me” and “Country Jungle” had been recorded by the Tams as long ago as 1962.