Emily Sieu Liebowitz
The best and most memorable songs are those that cannot be sung or covered by anyone else. The Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman,” the first single from Motown to reach the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, is one of them. Gladys Horton’s beautiful, plaintive delivery grabs you from first to last (“There must be some word today / from my boyfriend who’s so far away / please, Mr. Postman, look and see / if there’s a letter, a letter for me”).
But it might have been otherwise: Georgia Dobbins, who conceived and wrote “Please Mr. Postman” with Brian Holland (of Holland-Dozier-Holland fame), William Garrett (whose contribution was the title), Robert Bateman, and Freddie Gorman (an ex-postman himself), might have carried the lead were it not for her father’s iron fist.
