Songoftheday 3/15/14 - Well you can just believe I'm the only girl in your life, I'll be your sugar in the morning and the sweet stuff you need at night...

Mary Jane Girls - "In My House"
from the album Only Four You (1985)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #7 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 12

Today's Song of the Day is by the female R&B vocal group Mary Jane Girls, who were formed when funk superstar Rick James needed to have "group" for the recordings of his background singer JoJo McDuffie in order for his label to release the record. The other three girls in the group couldn't sing a lick at the time, and were just eye candy for the record cover.

Dubbed "The Mary Jane Girls" (quite subtly about Rick's love for the weed), the act released their self-titled debut album in 1983. Four singles were pulled from the album, and they all "bubbled under" the Billboard Hot 100, with three of them reaching the top-40 on the R&B chart, including their first, "Candy Man" (#23). and "All Night Long", which went to #8 on the dance chart and almost reaching the top-10 on the R&B list at #11. The latter even crossed over the Atlantic to become the girls' first top-40 hit in the UK (#13).

Two years later the quartet released their sophomore set, All Four You. With Yvette Marine, who would eventually get her 15 minutes for suing Paula Abdul, joining the lineup, the Girls' first single from the set, "In My House", gave them their big break....

The record did better than any of Rick's on solo hits, reaching the top 10 on the pop chart in June of 1985, while topping the dance club play chart and climbing to #3 on the R&B chart in Billboard magazine. Internationally, while the single went top-10 in Canada, Belgium, and the Netherlands, it surprisingly stalled out at #77 on the British singles chart.

"In My House" would be the group's only appearance in the pop top 40, though their next single "Wild And Crazy Love" came two rungs away from doing so. A year later, they released a remake of the Four Seasons' "Walk Like A Man" for the Ted Danson/Howie Mandel movie A Fine Mess, and frustratingly stopped at #41 (both records will be upcoming "robbed hits"). However, shortly after that, the Girls fell apart in the midst of Rick James' own "falling apart". Their name only surfaced in 1995 when a house remix of "All Night Long" went to #51 on the British chart.

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Here's the "Girls" on Smokey Robinson's TV special lipsynching for their lives..

German singer Sarah Connor also covered the song for her debut album in 2001..


Also, punk band Big Black took on the song for a one-off single (without changing the pronouns, even!)...

Up tomorrow: A Canadian heads for the stars.