Knight was flipped by the producer Lane 8 in 2014 he was struck by “a certain melancholy to her vocal,” he tells Rolling Stone. Laying this mournful sequence from Knight over a thwacking kick drum only heightens its impact: House discovered long ago that tragic sentiments and ferocious rhythms are a potent combination. Knight begins the song in a state of resignation (“ it’s gotten to the point where we just can’t fake it”) before she begins to arc and strain her voice, attempting to imagine “what I’m gonna do without you.” She pauses before some words and rushes through others, shifting her relationship with the beat as she grapples with possible futures she stretches the word “lie” over multiple measures, attenuating it and wearing it out, only to come roaring her way back as she comes to the title phrase. Producers tend to favor the first half of “Neither One of Us,” probably because that’s where the biggest shift in energy occurs. The following year, Knight’s voice was grafted onto a house record, “Time for Tea,” by Australian producer Francis Inferno Orchestra. Another English producer, Pangaea, also released a garage-learning track that year titled “Memories” which borrowed from the same song. English producer Sub Focus slipped a stuttering, pitch-shifted version of Knight’s vocals from “Neither One of Us” into a speedy drum-‘n’-bass record titled “Last Jungle” in 2009. Bob Luman took a version of “Neither One of Us” to Number Seven on the country charts in 1973 Angie Stone adapted the melody for her own “No More Rain (In This Cloud)” in 1999 Hall & Oates served up a straight forward cover in 2004.Īt the end of the 2000s, however, the song underwent another mutation. Though “Neither One of Us” has its fair share of admirers, it’s been largely overshadowed in cultural memory by another Weatherly-penned single, “Midnight Train to Georgia” (which oldies stations played 116 times last week, for instance, nearly four times as frequently as they spun “Neither One of Us”). Knight was arguably too effective at communicating her frustration, because “Neither One of Us” became a hit, climbing to Number Two on the Hot 100 and earning Motown a pile of money. Knight had one of the sandiest voices on the Motown roster, and she applied it liberally on a song that effectively served as a kiss-off to her longtime label - just a few months after the release, Knight and the Pips relocated to Buddah Records. Porter helped coax “Neither One of Us” through its first transformation, surrounding the original’s acoustic core with deep-soul instrumentation: a prominent string section, a rush of backing vocals from the Pips, electric keyboards and feisty bass.