Both versions of "Smiling Faces Sometimes" deal with the same subject matter, "back-stabbing" friends who do their friends wrong behind their backs ("Smiling faces sometimes...they don't tell the truth...smiling faces tell lies"), but in different ways. The lyrics inform the Listener to not be fooled by the smile, the handshake, or the pat on the back. The Temptations' original uses an arrangement similar to a haunted house film score to represent feelings of fear and timidness. Included on the 1971 Sky's the Limit album, "Smiling Faces Sometimes" runs over 12 minutes, most of which is extended instrumental passages without any vocals. This version established the epic, cinematic approach to the group's productions that Whitfield would perfect on subsequent hits like "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" (1972) and "Masterpiece" (1973). An edited version was planned as the Temptations' summer 1971 single release, but this plan was dropped when lead vocalist Eddie Kendricks, frustrated by personnel problems within the group, quit the Temptations and signed a solo deal with Motown in March 1971.
Future Undisputed Truth singles would never make it higher than #63, a position attained by both 1972's "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" and 1974's "Help Yourself". "Papa Was a Rollin' Stone" was re-recorded by The Temptations shortly after its release, and this re-recorded version became not only a #1 pop hit, but a three-time Grammy Award winner as well.
The O'Jays' similarly themed 1972 hit "Back Stabbers" quotes the lyrics "smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes...(tell lies)" in the refrain near the end of the song.
Whitfield later revisited the song for the 1973 album Ma, recorded by Motown's white rock band, Rare Earth, which he produced and wrote.
Virginia "Vee" McDonald, who was the female lead singer in the second incarnation of The Undisputed Truth (after Brenda Evans and Billie Calvin left in 1973), recorded a solo version of the song in 1990 for Ian Levine and his Motorcity Records project.[2]
Released on their 1973 album Ma, also produced by Norman Whitfield, with lead vocals by Peter Hoorelbeke. Contains Spanish lyrics at the beginning that are ignored in all transcriptions of the lyrics.
