The Beatles had covered the Miracles’ “You Really Got a Hold On Me” in 1963, and John Lennon also commented he was “trying to do Smokey Robinson again” with his song “All I’ve Got to Do.”

Perhaps the influence started to run the other way as well, for some of the lyrics of “The Tracks of My Tears” echo The Beatles’ 1964 song “I’m a Loser.” Robinson laughs in public and wears the mask of a clown, but inside, his tears are falling.

In turn, the Beatles took inspiration from the song’s twelve-string guitar intro by Marv Tarplin for Lennon’s “In My Life” on Rubber Soul.

Robinson would revisit the theme in “Tears of a Clown” in 1966.