A few months ago I wrote about an extremely rare demo session recorded sometime in 1988/1989, which probably marked the first collaboration between the Goo Goo Dolls and Lance Diamond.
If you haven’t read the aforementioned post, I suggest you do before continuing. If memory serves well, Robby Takac moved to an apartment building with his then-girlfriend. I believe it must have been around 1988. They shared an apartment underneath the above attic, where none other than Lance Diamond was living. Robby used to hear Lance singing and playing in his living space, until one day he decided to introduce himself. That is how the collaboration between the two acts began.
Anyway, in 1989 the band recorded a demo session for two songs, “Do You Believe In Him?” and “My Girl“. I find it amazing that these two tunes, which I speculate are unknown to the majority of Goo fans due to their rarity, are actually the best two Goo Goo Dolls the band recorded with Lance. I invite you to at least listen to the former and be amazed by the overall execution.
In the demo session introduced above, we got to hear the rough versions of those two tunes. Within that post I also included the final version of “Do You Believe In Him?” (which in those sessions was simply titled “Do You Believe?” and did not feature the female singer).
Today I want to share with you the final, mixed, mastered version of the second song, a cover of The Temptations called “My Girl“, which contrary to the other one was actually also played live a relevant amount of times between 1989 and 1990.
“Do You Believe In Him?” and “My Girl” were recorded for a charity project and included in a compilation called “Friends Of The Night People”, which was only issued as a cassette release and distributed in Buffalo, NY. Check the front cover below:
I remember reading somewhere that at least one of these songs was re-released in a 1997 Christmas compilation, but I could not locate any info about the latter, and it is not even present in the most complete music database to date: Discogs.com
You can listen to “My Girl” below. Download links are available at the end of this post.
Also, if you feel like you want to listen to an AI-generated instrumental take of this fine tune, you can listen to it below.
Temple of Goo - The rarest Goo Goo Dolls releases, for real Goo fans only 