That is so true. Gotta look at what you have not what you 'could have had'. He's got a wonderful, beautiful wife who will look after him. And they have a community of people who care about and respect them.

@@Paul-me5tp 💯

Amen! ❤️

sado-masochism?

✝️🙏❤️

That is my dad except he's still around but my MOM is gone. Go figure...

I agree 100 percent !! These people are real !!

The funk and groove took me out of the deeper meaning of the lyrics too. The mini series however was insightful on this song.

Amen to that

Same here. In 1972 I heard it but put it in my mind to check it out later. The Temptations were always good but this one went deeper. In '72' I was in the Marines and had more important duties. Last year, I found their greatest hits in a thrift store and picked it up. I recalled "My Girl" and others I liked but "Papa Was a Rolling Stone" blew me away like few others. It was the first time I really listened to the lyrics and marveled over the arrangement. One of my uncles was like this guy's Papa. Every family has a black sheep, a guy or gal who's charming, intelligent, and probably from drugs or alcohol or whatever ends up hurting not only themselves but anyone who cares. Because of that and how well it's done it is a classic which often isn't that well appreciated when it first came out.

oh, I always heard that " all he left us was a loan" meaning he left us debt. I was wrong for decades...

So true.

Way more "real" than anything in HipHop. I mean I enjoy HipHop but I really hope black people get back to instruments and playing music. Now just rhyming over a back track.

The music was haunting and the pauses in the music after the real life of his dad was exposed were well placed. A very well written song and so well performed..

It inspired Hip-hop. Funk and insightful lyrics.

@@miket7281 They "rhymed over a backtrack" back then cause they were poor kids with no access to instruments. Thats why hip was was born. But in this day and age making a record is something just about anyone can do with little money so i agree, i'd like to see more musicianship put back into mainstream black music.

😢😢😢

Yeah. I know so many guys that have been through the same situation! It's even worse today because a large number of females don't really respect themselves and the males are just like wolves in sheep clothing!!

Take Care.

That's nothing to be proud of I venture he did not pay child support eitherr.

@@CourtneyKing-ln7kq I’m not proud, but also not ashamed. I’ve met all of my brothers and sisters and we agree that the “mistakes” were theirs and not ours. We accept and love one another so it all worked out for us. Child support?? What’s that? 😂

Amen! I agree with your comment 100%! I think this song is a masterpiece in all aspects. ✌

I can’t add anything to your comment. It is THE perfect piece.

Is there anything written today that matches the caliber of a masterpiece like this?

@@chriscraftguy nope!

Music back then had a different feeling and meaning

Don't forget ball of confusion 🙂

I feel it my grandfather had 56 children with many women from East Africa to the UK this song reminds me off him

My Mother began dating my Father's brother, George but didn't like him. My Mother's girlfriends hooked her up on a blind date with my Father and she fell in love with him for some reason. She never regretted that decision. George would marry a woman, get her pregnant with a son, then when they were about 12, go out for a cigar or something and never return. He didn't bother to get a divorce. Our last name of Pahlka is easy to find in a telephone book, we are all related in America. George showed up when I was about 12 or 13 with a boy my age and an younger girl. I have no idea who was their mother was, George came in from Denver and didn't bring her. Do I have other cousins I don't know about? I don't know the boy and I were sent out to play. One of my cousins I did know about became hooked up with the singer and guitar genius, Carlos Santana. Somehow George heard about it and he shows up calling my cousin, Bill, out of the blue. Note: My cousin's birth name was George. Nobody called him that. By a coincidence, Bill discovered he had a half-brother named Paul who was born on the exact same day, eight years apart. Every birthday they'd call each other. The first thing Bill did was to call Paul and warn him their father was in town. George Sr. called Paul saying "I am your Father......." CLICK. Paul heard enough. George Sr. called my Dad. Both were raised paperhangers/ painters so my Dad gave him some work. He messed up the jobs so my Dad had to redo it for free. Then George went to live with his older sister. She laid down the rule he would not drink in her house. She caught him and put him into a mental institution for alcoholics in Napa, Calif. Before this, my parents took him to dinner at a Mexican restaurant near us. He stared at me and said "My son" and began drooling uncontrollably so we had to rush him out. I think that was when Dad asked their sister to keep him. (Excuse the narration, I haven't figured out how to move my sentences around yet,) By another coincidence, his youngest sister, my Aunt Gladys and her oldest daughter were nurses in Napa. When George died, they put all his possessions in a shoe box and handed it to me. Inside was George's birth certificate and baby pictures of his new born son, Paul and his mother. George had kept them all these years. If he deserted not only them but one wife and son before, then why? George's cause of death was alcoholic dementia. Some people seem to be born with genes where alcohol acts as heroin or opioids do to others. George would get paid on Friday and drink all through the weekend and miss work Monday. His son, Bill, couldn't just take that one drink either. My Dad and my cousin Paul could. For medical reasons, doing a family history is important. As a side comment, I have a photo of George, my Aunt Lucille and Aunt Gladys holding a infant who on the backside was written, baby Wallace. When I was stationed in Ft. Gorden, Ga., near Florida where my paternal Grandmother moved to after my Grandfather divorced her, I was afraid I'd meet some woman my age and fall instantly in love with her only to find out we were first cousins. With your mixed up family tree did you have the same fear? After my Grandmother moved to Florida my father never saw or heard of her again although my parents did try to go from S.F. to Florida right after they were married. They worked their way across the U.S. until they hit Mississippi but after one day of picking cotton, my Mom made my Dad go back to California where it's cool. My Mom and other women in my family could not handle the heat at all! That too, like alcoholism may be genetic. Hope I didn't bore you too much, my sister and I are writers. We don't know where we got it from. 😆

Wow. Hope all is well

Yeah. I know so many brothers and sisters whose fathers were out here just having kids by numerous different women!

I managed a housing community for several years. We had a guy that had children with 6 different women living out there and he brought in another one, pregnant. But, they did not actually know about each other until they got called in for recertification and you have to verify child support etc. What got me about it was all these kids out there, not knowing they were related. And, I am pretty sure he had a few other kids with other women that didn't live there. Very sad.

Thank you

Cloud Nine too .

And "Psychedelic Shack" by the Temptations. Not to mention the big hits "War" by Edwin Starr and "Smiling Faces Sometimes" by The Undisputed Truth which were also Whitfield/Strong songs that were first recorded by the Temptations and then passed along to their fellow Motown artists.

BALL OF CONFUSION-TEMPTATIONS 🌍🔥🔥🔥

One of my top 5 movies of all time. I highly recommend you guys watch it.

Oh I love the movie is fantastic

You goddamn right

A Loan not alone

@@RONJAE212003 you thick? It’s alone

@Dick Lewis If you can't tell your life partner about personal things such as this without scrutiny, then that may not be the partner for you...

@Dick Lewis "...iT's BeEn PrOvEn..." If you chose wrong, just say that...

❤

Its sad very sad 😔

May the good Lord heal your heart Michael.I used to struggle with my father's leaving,but one day I just realized he just didn't have " that tool" in his toolbox! I forgave him.Good for you for being a stand up dad!👏🏿👊

Your reaction from being from a broken home was like my father's. Getting Dad to talk about his past was almost impossible. To get information about my family's history still is a lot of work. His father left for Chicago to find work and to play the violin. Coming back, he'd get drunk and start accusing my grandmother of cheating, saying my uncle and my Dad weren't his. It was all a lie, verified by one of my Dad's cousins. It turns out my grandfather was the one who cheated. Being Catholic, infidelity was the only way to get a divorce. The only way my grandmother could survive was to remarry and that man didn't want someone else's kids. My father took it really hard, he was only ten. My Dad went to one family and ran away. My Uncle George went to a family of cheats and alcoholics. My two Aunts lived with a good relative but his wife worked the girls like slaves and stole the checks my grandfather would send for support. The only good thing my grandfather did for my Dad was to teach him a trade. His brother George, would get with his deadbeat cousins he was raised with and be just like them, cheating, stealing and whatever, mooching, telling a great sob story or trying to get others to give money for some get rich quick scheme. I always wondered why my Dad was so different. He fell in love with my Mom and her Mother gave my Dad and his two sisters tough love. Because of my Mom's Mother it was my Dad, not his brother George or his father who went from California to Oklahoma to get his sisters out of a convent after they ran away living on the streets because they couldn't take their adopted "mother" anymore. Asking Dad why it was he wasn't like George or his father, he couldn't say. There had to be a few times he vowed to himself he was going to be a good father as his prime goal in life. When he lay dying in much pain, I said, "Dad, you raised three good kids." He smiled at that, maybe it was the last time he smiled before he died, the nurse came in, telling us it was time to leave. We had to go back to Las Vegas. It was the last time I saw him, he died two weeks later before we could visit again. My Mother dated George before she was tricked into dating my Dad. She liked him better. I kind of shutter to think George could have been my father instead! I think Heaven smiled on me but my Father had to make that soul searching decision despite not being raised religiously. I'm glad you did also.😁

YES!! MELVIN FRANKLIN. RIP

And Wah Wah Watson on guitar.

It really is a great portrayal of their story. I really appreciate that movie. I thought the word on that song was ....and when he died all he left us was "a loan" (!). Not sure!

Yeah I also think it said a loan!

Chi-Lites, Gene Chandler. ❤