Little Eva was Carol King’s baby sitter. And she did the Locomotion.
It turned out Little Eva also had a boyfriend who hit her, when things weren’t going right. Carol and Gerry Goffin learned about Eva’s burden and wrote this song in outrage, but it seems Phil Spector missed at least part of the point.
So it stands as an amazing song with a killer arrangement and offensive lyrics. How do you reconcile that?
The story I heard was that Spector needed a song to fulfill a contract and did this as an up yours, but looking around the internet I see no confirmation of that.