I started out

Before Mike James Kirkland made Hang On In There — his socially conscious soul statement of 1972 — he was simply Mike, fronting the Censations, a young singer with doo-wop and gospel in his throat, cutting singles that hardly anyone heard. “There’s Nothing I Can Do About It” is one of them, from a 1967 45: two and a half minutes of surrender, Mike out front pleading his case while the Censations answer him in perfect group harmony.

It’s the helplessness that sells it. The song doesn’t argue or bargain; it just states the situation — in love, no way out, nothing to be done — and lets the backing voices confirm the diagnosis. Records like this slipped through the cracks the first time around, and it took the crate-diggers at Ubiquity, who gathered the Censations sides on the compilation Don’t Sell Your Soul, to pull it back into the light.

Play it twice: once for Mike, once for the Censations behind him.