This song was written by Bo Diddley, but he published it under the name of his wife, Ethel Smith, due to a legal dispute with his record company. His version can be found on I'm a Man: The Chess Masters, 1955-1958. The song is about the complexities of love - how it can be addictive and lead to madness.
Mickey & Sylvia are McHouston "Mickey" Baker and Sylvia Robinson (at the time, she was Sylvia Vanderpool). Their version was a drastically different take on the song, turning Bo Diddley's call-and-response portion into a conversation between Mickey and Sylvia. The spoken word portion of the song where Mickey asks, "How do you call your loverboy?" and Sylvia responds, "Hey, Loverboy," made the song quite memorable and was especially racy for the time. The coy sexuality of this portion helped advance the stoylines of several famous movies, including the 1972 adult film Deep Throat, the 1973 movie Badlands, and the 1987 movie Dirty Dancing, where the main characters played by Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey mimed the song to each other.
This was the only hit for Mickey and Sylvia, but Sylvia had a #3 US hit in 1973 with "Pillow Talk," where she effectively simulates an orgasm. More significantly, she started Sugarhill Records and put together The Sugarhill Gang, who had the breakthrough Hip-Hop hit "Rapper's Delight."
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