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Motown M 1060 (A), June 1964
b/w He Means The World To Me
(Written by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Edward Holland Jr.)
Stateside SS 327 (A), August 1964
b/w He Means The World To Me
(Released in the UK under license through EMI / Stateside Records)
Here we are, then.
More than two years of writing this blog, and it’s only now we can say with confidence that Motown’s Golden Age is definitely upon us. Everyone’s seen this record coming a mile off, and regardless of what’s gone before, it feels like this is somehow the official start of the Motown story, as though we’re finally getting permission: now. Now you can celebrate.
All of which is pretty ironic, because this record – a benchmark in so, so many ways – came into the world almost entirely unheralded, an unwanted and unloved bit of rejected Marvelettes album filler that somehow ended up changing the game forever.
* * *
Imagine, if you will, that you are a bookmaker in the early winter of 1961. The door opens with a creak, and October sunlight briefly floods your dingy shop. A figure walks in off the street, and everything goes dim again as the door closes behind them. It’s a man in a heavy coat and dark glasses. He is in fact a time traveller, though of course you aren’t to know that. He comes up to the grille and hands you two battered 7-inch singles. One of them is a German pressing of something called My Bonnie, credited to “Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers”. The other is a cheap-looking thing on Tamla Records out of Detroit (never heard of them myself, but the label says that’s where they’re from!), I Want A Guy by some group by the name of The Supremes. The guy says he bets that, by 1964, these two acts will between them rack up no less than NINE number one records – that year. What odds do you give him?
* * *
I love this record.
In Britain, where this got to number three – Motown’s biggest hit to date, surpassing Mary Wells’ top five with My Guy – this isn’t anywhere near as well-known as the Supremes’ follow-up record, Baby Love, I’m guessing because Baby Love has in a way superseded Where Did Our Love Go. I was probably about fourteen when I first heard Where Did Our Love Go, despite the fact Baby Love was and is on wall-to-wall rotation as the go-to record whenever a show wants some Sixties Motown.
As a result, I can never experience what it was like to encounter these two records for the first time in the right order; I can’t listen to Where Did Our Love Go except through the prism of hundreds, possibly thousands, of listens of Baby Love. And the effect of hearing them in the wrong order was that this one was like a colossal endorphin rush, burying me with a collapsing wall of the building blocks that make up Baby Love, leaving me with a feeling of something like mainlining the essence of that record; if Where Did Our Love Go is missing some of the poise, and the riveting oooooh! break, from the later hit, it’s still somehow more direct, its blunt force trauma (aural and emotional) somewhat akin to being bludgeoned by a graceful, dainty woman wearing heavy boxing gloves. It is such a strange, beautiful record.
I love it because – musically – it takes four bars to hear the entire song, and the rest of the record just luxuriates in it, or rather lets the listener luxuriate in it; like all the best pop songs, it surprises with a clever and beautiful hook and then plays on it, teasing the listener and then granting them the intense hit of pleasure they crave. It’s just that Where Did Our Love Go manages to compress that entire experience into about five seconds, and then spends the entire remaining two and a half minutes running time playing with loose variations on those same four bars. Only one musical element ever gets changed from cycle to cycle – the lyrical cadences, the drum fills, the backing vocals – but it’s enough that it somehow feels fresh and irresistible every single time. Even now, on what Winamp tells me is my two hundred and twenty first play, I’m still noticing tiny little things I hadn’t noticed before.
It’s four magical bars, something that might conceivably have been discovered in the studio by accident – whether by the Holland-Dozier-Holland writing team, or the studio band, the Funk Brothers, messing around between sessions – and you can imagine everyone just turning to each other, shocked, and giving a look that just said “whoa.” So it’s surprising that, according to all first-hand accounts, there doesn’t ever seem to have been any great enthusiasm for this song until it started to sell, and sell, and sell; initial reactions ranged from indifference to mockery and open hostility, and it wasn’t until the whole completed production was finished and in the can that anyone thought of putting it out as a single, and even then there were serious doubts all over Hitsville. What the hell is this thing, anyway?
* * *
It was indeed born of some between-sessions studio noodling, Lamont Dozier “tinkering on the piano” when he came up with the simple piano melody and the title phrase (the tune of which, as Terry Wilson notes, is actually strongly reminiscent of Martha Reeves’ “something inside” from Heat Wave). Together with Brian Holland, the two quickly wrote a throwaway little song around that central riff – Baby, baby, where did our love go? – and proposed it to the Marvelettes as something to bulk out their mooted upcoming LP (an LP that never actually materialised).
But the Marvelettes were in a strange place when this was offered to them, having recently cut a string of underwhelming singles for various Motown writer-producers. Stories differ as to exactly what happened – some accounts have Motown offering the girls a choice between this and another track, Too Many Fish In The Sea, while others have the Marvelettes simply rejecting Where Did Our Love Go out of hand. Either way, in one of the great Motown stories, the Marvelettes turned this down.
It’s easy, with hindsight, to call this a dumb move on the Marvelettes’ part. It really wasn’t anything of the sort; there were perfectly good reasons for the girls to turn down Where Did Our Love Go, and there’s absolutely nothing to suggest it would have become a similar hit – or even been released as a single – had the Marvelettes relented and cut it like they were supposed to. (Though it’s tempting to wonder just what Berry Gordy made of this little show of independence.) Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20, but by the Marvelettes’ own accounts, it’s a completely understandable call.
Gladys Horton, in the liner notes to The Complete Motown Singles: Volume 4: “When they played us the band track of Where Did Our Love Go, they also played us the band track of Too Many Fish In The Sea. We picked “Too Many Fish” becuase it had all of the music and the bongos. If you listen to it without the lyrics, you hear all of the music. When you listen to Where Did Our Love Go without the lyrics, you hear nothing.”
Katherine Anderson Schaffner, talking to Goldmine: “That was a very good song, but it really wasn’t a song for us… The tempo of it was rather slow. And the voicing and stuff like that was rather slow. I can’t imagine us, the Marvelettes, which was a high-spirited kind of group, doing something like Where Did Our Love Go?. Even though we did ballads, I couldn’t imagine that we would have done that one. I don’t know that (Wanda and Gladys) had that much clout to say what they would take or what they wouldn’t take. And I think Too Many Fish In The Sea did us very well.”
Rebuffed, the HDH team initially approached the often-absent Velvelettes, offering Where Did Our Love Go as a “comeback” single, before Motown encouraged them to offer it to the Supremes – who were now back to being the “no-hit Supremes” after the brief Top 30 false dawn of When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes, the follow-up (the superb Run Run Run) having tanked just inside the Hot 100.
The Supremes weren’t any more thrilled than the Marvelettes with the song, and doubly frustrated at the prospect of inheriting someone else’s hand-me-downs. Mary Wilson, controversially denied the opportunity to sing lead despite being Eddie Holland’s first choice for the song – something which has inspired whole chapters of other books, and which still seems to be a sore point even now, almost fifty years later – apparently burst into tears during the session as she reflected on how wrong things had seemingly gone. (Bear in mind, too, that this is a woman who’d already made it through The Man With The Rock & Roll Banjo Band, so you know this must have felt like a low point.)
Unhelpfully cajoled by the Marvelettes, who warned the Supremes about how poor the song was and advised them not to let HDH bully them into accepting it, the Supremes would almost certainly have turned this down too if they’d had the opportunity. But the Marvelettes had had lots of hit records; the Supremes had had one, and even that was starting to look like a fluke. They’d do as they were told, albeit grumpily and with no great enthusiasm. As it was, they still managed to impose a little of their will on the session, refusing to engage with Lamont Dozier’s planned intricate backing vocals – described by Florence Ballard as sounding “like a nursery rhyme” – and forcing Dozier to alter the charts so that the much simpler Baby baby / Baby baby backing vocals were used instead.
Even that was a grudging compromise on the part of the Supremes. Mary again: “We didn’t want to record that at all. They said ‘trust us, it’ll be a hit.’ We said, ‘yes, but it sounds like a kid song. It’s not Martha and the Vandellas’ Dancing In The Street, it’s baby baby… baby baby. Very childish, right? Eddie Holland said ‘Just trust us, it’s going to be a hit.’ I was the main one saying we’ll do it, but my God.”
Brian and Lamont voted for Diana Ross, ahead of Mary, to sing lead on the song. The track had been pitched for Gladys Horton, whose usual range was a good octave below Diana’s recent high, piping deliveries; Holland and Dozier, by now seasoned producers, wanted to see what would happen if they forced Diana into a lower, breathier register than she was used to.
The recording was completed on April 8th, 1964.
* * *
It’s so weird, so alien (listening to it alongside the rest of Motown’s 1964 output really underlines this point), and yet now so familiar. All the trainspotters’ Motown Sound hallmarks are here – the 4/4 beat, the crotchet pulse piano/guitar, the sparse arrangement showing up the thudding bass – but they blend with the vocals so perfectly that it just says “Supremes”, straight away, heralding a whole new sound.
I don’t think anyone but Diana Ross could have done this with the material. She is incredible here; pushed out of her supposed comfort zone, we hear for the first time Motown’s most unique lead singer. Technically speaking, she’s nothing special, thin and wispy, lacking energy; as an actress, she’s so-so, frequently misinterpreting the mood of a lyric to what should be the detriment of a song. Emotionally, when it comes to conveying the direct, full-on anguish of a broken heart, there’s never been anyone else who even comes close.
The frailty in her voice, the slight wavering (And all of your promises?), the sheer vulnerability and woundedness of it all (don’t you want me no more?… PLEASE don’t leave me)… it is something we haven’t heard before. But it’s not just the pain, it’s the combination of the pain with a stomping, driving beat and a simple tune so infectious it can feed an entire song with the same four bars, without ever pushing it too far one way or the other. The Supremes, all together, sound absolutely great here – Diana out front in the spotlight, sure, but the sweet harmonies and ever-so-slightly throaty edge of Flo and Mary’s backing vocals seem to reflect the tenderness of Diana’s delivery, the high, chiming quarter notes and the direct drive of those footstomps all at once. When the backing vocals and lead vocal combine – somehow both predictably and unexpectedly – to sing Where did our love go? in unison for the first time, it’s like a light being switched on somewhere in heaven.
If ever a record were much, much more than the sum of its parts, more than those basic elements written down on paper should by rights add up to – well, this is it. The record is better than its song suggests it should be. For all its importance in the Motown/Jobete canon, it’s attracted very, very few attempts at cover versions, whether inside or outside the organisation – Soft Cell’s effort is the only notable one I can think of that gained any kind of traction. I like to think this is because Where Did Our Love Go is a once-in-a-lifetime, one-shot deal; it’s the birth of the Supremes as we all know them, the birth of a whole style of music (the first record you can immediately point to and say “that’s the Motown Sound” as if it were the archetype), impossible to recreate, pointless to try.
* * *
It seems to reflect the listener’s mood; sometimes it’s the wide open spaces and detached froideur that emphasise themselves, while the next time you hear it it might be the beat, the piano, the finger-clicking rhythm; the next time, the vulnerable desperation; the next time, the anger, soothed or amplified by the backing vocals.
I can’t imagine what it must have been like hearing this for the first time; a group nobody had really heard of before, a sound that hadn’t been heard before. The first time I heard it – and like everyone else my age or younger, I certainly had both heard of the group and heard the sound – it still grabbed me by the collar, because it’s so obviously, obviously good. Motown must have felt the same way, scheduling this as the Supremes’ next single (the group’s ninth overall), confident enough to start ploughing some of the money coming in from Mary Wells’ My Guy into its promotion, buoyed enough by the immediate positive reaction to take out big adverts in the trade papers a month after release hubristically announcing – not predicting – the record would become Motown’s fourth Number One hit. Which of course it did.
* * *
One of my favourite stories concerning this record’s rise is that the Supremes were actually out on tour when Where Did Our Love Go was released, occupying the bottom slot on Dick Clark’s Cavalcade of Stars, a slot they’d only been granted by Dick Clark’s people because Motown insisted it be a condition of Brenda Holloway appearing on the tour. On the first few dates, the crowd reaction was muted; a bit of polite applause, otherwise confused indifference.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Supremes!”
“…Who?”
As the record rose up the charts, the applause started to get louder, and Where Did Our Love Go was met with increasingly ecstatic screams. (I imagine the scene to be something like the bit in O Brother, Where Art Thou when the crowd suddenly realises it’s the Soggy Bottom Boys performing in front of them. If you don’t get this reference, you need to watch more films.)
By the end of the tour, the Supremes were heading the bill. Not only was this single flying off the shelves, but Motown had prepared a second album (above), titled after the song, and also repackaged their hitherto-overlooked 1962 début LP Meet The Supremes to capitalise on the girls’ new image (left). It all sounds unbelievable, like the sort of thing that would be depicted by a montage in Dreamgirls, and yet it’s true.
* * *
That feeling of overcoming the odds, climbing to the top – we made it, guys! – is yet another reason I love this record; the sense of relief and achievement isn’t just extra-textual context, it’s right there for everyone to hear. But I don’t want anyone to go away thinking that I’m praising this just for its historical significance, or because it introduces us (properly!) to one of the all-time great groups; I’m praising it because it’s a magnificent pop record, at once cold and stately and also swaggering and hip-shaking, and because I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of hearing it for as long as I live.
MOTOWN JUNKIES VERDICT
(I’ve had MY say, now it’s your turn. Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment, or click the thumbs at the bottom there. Dissent is encouraged!)
You’re reading Motown Junkies, an attempt to review every Motown A- and B-side ever released. Click on the “previous” and “next” buttons below to go back and forth through the catalogue, or visit the Master Index for a full list of reviews so far.
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The Supremes “He Means The World To Me” |
DISCOVERING MOTOWN |
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Motown Junkies 
By the time the album was released on August 31, we all needed it, each of us having played the 45 so near-flat it’s a wonder the stylus didn’t skate right to the trail-out area as it landed. As was the case with “My Guy,” the A-side was so damn good, you had to familiarize yourself with its flip, and even though Norman takes Diana rather close to her “scream singing,” most of us did a respectable job of playing away the shine on that side too. ( The LP would be Motown’s most successful non-greatest hits album from 1964 till Marvin’s What’s Going On in mid-1971. )
A little personal here, I was hanging out that summer with a family of kids two blocks away, two of whom I remember had some reform school history, including the oldest girl (16). When the album came out, I was promised a down-the-pants feel-up if I shoplifted the Where Did Our Love Go album for her. I successfully did, and I got my ‘reward.’ 😮 10 years old; when “Baby Love” and “Come See About Me” were subsequently issued I was sorry I didn’t keep the album, close my eyes, fondle a Brillo pad, and got the same effect. I didn’t get caught, and to reassure you, my family moved to another Philadelphia neighborhood within days of that, I found a better grade of friends, and my budding criminality stopped then and there. But no wonder I smile with a blush when Stevie sings his “I Wish.” ( caught you playing doctor with that nurse… you grow up and learn that kind of thing ain’t right, but while you were doin’ it, it sure felt out of sight )
With just the clopping intro and Diana’s “Baby baby/ baby don’t leave me…” she had you under her hypnosis, and you were only too happy to stay for the 2:32 ride. “Where” was recorded in Detroit on April 4, and by then the unfair fate of “Run Run Run” was showing in piss-poor sales numbers that seem to obliterate the momentum of “Lovelight.” Never hungrier for a genuine hit, Florence, Mary & Diana were sure “Where” wasn’t it. Cholly Atkins told J. Randy Taraborelli, with years-later amusement, that on the cusp of the Clark tour, the trio was sent to him to brush up their steps to their most recent material and the forthcoming single. “’We all hate this thing,’ Diane said, ‘and now we have to go out and promote it.’ She was just singing the blues about that. They all were. I think, more than anything, they were embarrassed by the record.”
Lamont Dozier too, I’ve read, said that originally the background vocals to the song were going to be a little more complex, but given the “attitude” he was dealing with in the studio, finally said, “Okay, forget all that, just do ‘Baby, baby…’” Talk about miraculous accident. And the task “Lovelight” and “Run Run Run,” didn’t quite achieve was made plain by “Where,” with a little help from its picture sleeve: you now knew this was a group of only three girls, and just girls. Pretty ones, too; for babyboomer white kids instantly smitten with The Supremes, it felt late getting there when someone eventually coined the term, “Black Is Beautiful.”
I didn’t neglect any Motown favorite with the launch of the Supremes rocket –and would add a few more to come- but there was no denying they’d ascended to a plateau of success no other Motown act quite shared with them. Or, as Nelson George put it, the “quirky, repetitive ditty” released on June 17, 1964, placed the Supremes “on the brink of a stardom no other black act had ever enjoyed.” Now, in very short order, The Supremes would raise Berry Gordy’s Detroit record company on a par with Columbia, Capitol and RCA. Come the conclusion of 1964, in any home with young people, The Supremes were now a household word. The eventual costs in hurt feelings, and this or that folk cast to the wayside we’ll get to in the right time, but for now, let’s just revel in that magic summer. You came into my heart/ so tenderly/ with a burnin’ love/ that stings like a bee… 🙂
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I always think that if shoplifters are targeting your record, you’ve done something right. I remember in 1995-ish, when Michael Jackson’s 2CD HIStory set – one disc of new material, one disc of greatest hits – came out, there were reports of shoplifters stealing the best-of disc but leaving the new songs disc in the racks…
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Wow! I’m a huge Michael Jackson fan and I’ve never heard that story, but the 2CD HIStory set was the first and only time I stole from the library lol. I can understand those fans at the time leaving the 2nd CD behind. Great story!
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Now THAT was a good read! So vividly written it feels like I was there.
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Thank you very much, glad you enjoyed it!
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A bright line in the Detroit asphalt, this is, demarcating the arrival of a new era. Otherwise, ’nuff said.
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Clap, clap, clap A ’10’ of a review, Nixon, plenty worthy of a ’10’ of a record. Thank you for not letting the modest anticipation time turn into pain for us. Go ahead and take a few days off, you’ve earned them.
And from someone who’s never gone three months without a listen of it in 47 years, no, you’ll never get tired of it. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of buying it either, whether on flat metal discs or more vulnerable vinyl. So far, six copies of the 45, one or two them bought simply because the label’s font lettering was different from what I already had.
It’s a damn good thing Supremes and Vandellas records weren’t injectable drugs or I would have been a decrepit, newspaper-covered junkie, sleeping in an alley before I was 13 🙂 Now starts the years that, whenever I heard a new one by either group, the bended-knee begging and pleading a dollar out of Mom knows no limits. Heaven knows, if little Dave didn’t have his own copy by the next sunrise, our planet would stop spinning on its axis and careen into a black hole of space.
🙂 Can’t wait to read the memories of the rest of the gang. 🙂
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This is what I love about this site. You described my life at the time this record came out. I always felt like I was the only one in my small Canadian town that was listening to Motown (Supremes above all). Motown brought us all together with our love for the music.
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Gosh I must say I would have been a stone cold junkie if Motown were a drug! I am like the Brits I love the liner notes and the labels and the sound. I love your review.
Stephanie C.
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Thanks Stephanie, it’s much appreciated.
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By the time (disc jockey) Murray the K’s Labor Day show came to the Brooklyn (NY) Fox Theater, “Where Did Our Love Go” was already up the charts. When he introduced Diana, Mary and Florence the audience response was deafening! After their performance, it was clear to most everyone that the group was on their way to sustained stardom.
Excellent essay, Mr. Nixon, and a spot-on mark for an outstanding performance.
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Pretty much my favorite Supremes song of all time. Baby Love was so much more popular in Canada and I find it nearly unbearable now. But Where Did Our Love Go never gets old; a true classic.
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For the record, the single was released June 17, 1964, it began 14 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 Pop chart on July 11, reached the Top 40 the 18th, the Top 10 on August 1, and peaked for two weeks at No. 1 beginning August 22.
It displaced Dean Martin’s “Everybody Loves Somebody,” and was itself replaced by The Animals’ “House Of The Rising Sun.”
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That’s comparable to ‘Rock Around the Clock’ displacing ‘The Ballad of Davy Crockett’ back in 1955…. That Dean Martin song used to fill me with cosmic rage! O that smarmy complacency! Double thanks to Diana, Mary, Florence, and HDH for sweeping that pot of rotting marshmallow fluff off the shelf!
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I agree. Just as 1939 must have had some flop movies, so too did 1964 have to have its unexplainable pop music successes.
When Sinatra founded Reprise Records in 1962 there was immediate friendly rivalry between father and daughter over who’d get a single to the top of Billboard first, but Frank and Nancy would wait two more years after Martin beat them both with this. But now that you jog my memory further, John, you’re right, it was in as heavy rotation as The Supremes’ breakthrough, played to death, and the kind of record, when you heard its cold vocal start-up, couldn’t hit a different preset button fast enough on the car radio.
The sunny side of the story is, I don’t remember it (or any other of Martin’s Top Tens) being revived much as oldies.
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I love your insight! I’m learning soooo much from this blog = )
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Okay gang. I have to confess I actually like “Everybody Loves Somebody”! It is very nicely arranged. I think the reason it was popular during the Motown/British Invasion musical landscape was that it actually employed some rock & roll/R&B elements – like the triplets thing going on in the background. If you want to hear a great version of the song, check out Dinah Washington’s version from the late 50s. I think someone in Dino’s camp had heard her version & suggested he record it. Music veteran, Jimmy Bowen, was the producer on the session. He talked about it in his book from a few years ago.
I have to confess that I have this weird part of me that likes some really schmaltzy songs. Anyway, we better get back to Motown!!!!
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By the time it reached #1, “Baby Love” was recorded and ready to go – impossible to imagine that kind of slow climb happening today.
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Yes, “Where Did Our Love Go” stays in Billboard’s Top Ten till the beginning of October, while “Baby Love” hits the street on September 17. (And, of course, “Come See About Me” is even faster on its predecessor’s heels.) “Baby Love,” with four consecutive weeks at the top is the The Supremes longest-lasting No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Pop chart. But “I Hear A Symphony” was the fastest getting there; debuting at 39, it then moved 12 to 5 to 1 in four weeks.
For the record too, it wasn’t their female Motown competition that kept the Vandellas’ “Dancing In The Street” from the top spot, but Manfred Mann’s “Do Wah Ditty Ditty.”
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Agree! Those days are long gone.
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Thank heavens a 10. I had been a bit concerned!
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🙂 It had to be…
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I admit I was wondering how you were going to rate this. A definite ’10,’ no doubt, but what would be your verdict on Diana’s vocals? Too thin, too coy, a poor substitute for a potential lead by Mary? You surprised me with your review, which directly corresponds with my feelings. I don’t even remember hearing this for the first time, although I must have been blown away. I even plunked down four dollars for the album, the first album I ever bought, the first song that merited buying an entire album, sound unheard, based on a single. And I sure wasn’t disappointed; I was transported. (The next lp purchase would be ‘Meet the Beatles’.)
A few years ago, as a diversionary exercise, I ranked my favorite 100 records of all time. I put ‘Where Did Our Love Go’ at Number One. When I share my list with others, they all express mild amazement at my choice for the top. I try to put my love for this record into words, but it’s astonishingly difficult to describe genius. You come the closest I’ve ever seen. A ‘strange, beautiful record’ that sounds ‘like a light being turned on somewhere in heaven’ — that sums it up perfectly!
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Despite my indifference to “Where Did Our Love Go”, I was so pleased that Motown had another British hit that I too bought the album.
In my case, it was only the second album I had ever bought, the first being the Crystals’ “He’s A Rebel”. The British album differed from the American in that some tracks were dropped and replaced by tracks from “Meet the Supremes”.
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I’m sad to say that the popularity of “Where Did Our Love Go” will always remain a mystery to me. If the Supremes’ breakthrough had come with “Baby Love”, I would have had no problem as that is a proper song worthy of a 9 or 10, but WDOLG is much inferior and does absolutely nothing for me.
I seem to be in good company as the Marvelettes and Velvelettes rejected the song. If I’d hated the record, it might have helped me understand. At least with songs like Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” or with Jimi Hendrix’s style of guitar playing, I can see that people would like them for the very same reasons I dislike them.
WDOLG is not like that. I can appreciate the charm of the Supremes singing “baby, baby” in the background, but apart from that it just goes in one ear and out the other. It’s not a bad record, and to me merits a rating of 5 or 6.
As I said in my comment on the Marvelettes’ “You’re My Remedy”, I first heard the two on the same day, and feel that the Marvelettes is the stronger in every way and deserved to be a major hit. I just don’t get it, I wish that I did, and I just have to accept that it’s entirely my loss.
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Although I fully concur with Nixon’s rating of 10, and still find the song unique and sexy and charming – and remember full well how infatuated I was with Diana Ross during my college years – these days I do find myself turning more to the Marvelettes, Martha, and the Velvelettes for sustenance. I listened to the sequence of the Supremes’ #1 hits, from WDOLG through You Can’t Hurry Love, last night, and … well, it’s all lovely, and brilliant, and enjoyable – but somehow insubstantial, and perhaps just a trifle too sweet. Nonetheless I had many moments of intense pleasure, and still recognize the unique seductive energy of the best of these songs… and can still connect with the original pleasure of letting myself be seduced by them nearly half a century ago! –
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I think of the Golden Age Supremes as a sort of delicious dessert – the first few bites are heavenly, but you probably shouldn’t overdo it; you certainly wouldn’t want to eat seven of them in one sitting. It’s for that reason that (a) the Supremes made a great many of my very favourite Motown singles – SPOILER ALERT, there are some more tens to be handed out to this lot yet – and (b) I’ve never bought a Supremes best-of, nor compiled a Supremes-only playlist. I think the Supremes NEED the “rougher” groups around them, for context, contrast and palate-cleansing.
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Brilliant analogy, and quite just! – I used to make (and will again…) energy CDs for car travel, alternating high-energy classical bits with my favourite R & B, so that ‘Ain’t That a Groove’ alternates with a chorus from the Bach Magnificat, and ‘Come See About Me’ with a high-adrenalin Verdi ensemble… The only danger of this is that it encourages a heavy foot on the gas pedal, and I learned (at my cost) not to do this while driving in downtown Montreal. I’m glad to hear more ’10s’ await, and of course am dying to know what they’ll be – perhaps my favourite after the initial immortal tetralogy (through Stop!) is the ill-fated ‘Love is Like an Itching in My Heart.’ – And perhaps if I’d put ‘Stop!’ on that energy CD, I wouldn’t have collided (gently, thank heaven) with that Lexus!!
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It did attract a cover version, and a very successful one too, being taken back into the UK Top Ten by Donnie Elbert in 1972, hitting #8 and becoming the biggest hit single of his career. It’s certainly much better than Soft Cell’s attempt!
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you said i might be disappointed by this “10”. hardly! this is rock solid motown, and deserves nothing less. there are a few of the over played oldies that deserve their status (you’ve lost that loving feeling, god only knows) wdolg is one of them. now, baby love … hmm … that’s another story!
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I feel exactly the opposite. I could never get tired of “Baby Love”.
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Interesting! I will of course be expounding on this when we get to “Baby Love”.
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I remember getting a letter from my sister excitedly asked me if I’d heard a new song – she thought it might be called ‘Baby, baby…’ but it was WDOLG, and we were very excited about it. It certainly set the seal on my Motown addiction. Arriving at university in 1963, my only non-classical albums were the first two Joan Baez LPs, forlorn in a sea of Verdi and Mahler and Stravinsky; during the first year I’d managed to acquire The Beatles Second Album (containing their fine cover of Please Mr Postman) and a Dusty Springfield album – WDOLG was next, the first of many, and I wore it out – it was, as I recall, roughly contemporaneous with the Stones’ scruffy first album, and Otis Redding’s The Soul Album, – which I bought blind, seduced by the wonderful cover; and Another Side of Bob Dylan. That heady mix of flavours paved the way for James Brown – and for the Temptations, whom I hadn’t discovered yet. I was smitten with Diana – and can recall a wonderful concert in Burlington, Vermont.. she had yet to acquire the last layer of stage-savvy veneer, and this was all to the good, as she was tripping all over herself with excitement and enthusiasm. Nixon, bravo again for an essay fully worthy of its subject!
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And I remember writing it! This was the frist album I ever bought – and I’ve worn out at least two copies. Great song and wonderful review – and comments, everyone!
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Thank you John and Mary. I wondered if the piece would strike a chord with people, it’s very nice to see it apparently has!
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I forgot – Donnie Elbert also turned it into a smash Stateside too, hitting #6 R&B and #15 pop before he appeared in the UK charts.
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J. Geils Band (US #68), Manhatten Transfer (UK #40), Tricia Penrose (UK #71) also had minor hits with it. So it has been covered a few times over the years. Recently Pussycat Dlls did “a Soft Cell” and combined it with Tainted Love on an album. Never heard it, don’t want to hear it, but it would have made whoever owns Jobete these days a few dollars.
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That would be EMI Music, who coveted Jobete for more years than I care to remember. I recall they paid $132 million for half of it in 1997, which makes you think Berry might have sold himself a bit short when he offloaded Motown for a mere $61 million in 1988. And I’m sure there was another $100 million plus changing hands when Berry sold the other half of Jobete some years back.
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So when I said “very few cover versions”, I should actually have said “loads of cover versions”!
I’d literally never heard of the Donnie Elbert version, let alone actually listened to it. Thanks for that – it’s horrible, missing the point on just about every possible level, and the reams of Youtube comments saying “best cover ever!”, “better than the original” etc. make me sad.
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1964, 14 with a huge crush on a 13 year old girl around the corner. We were sitting on her front stoop when a group of guys in a convertible drive up and park and we hear this sound … a sound so inviting, so sweet but yet pleading “baby dont leave me”. I listended, she listened we had to listen it was the kind of sound that made you pay attention. Diana, Flo, and Mary made that very cute girl lay her head on my shoulder and smile. WOW! what a song , a well deserved 10 and a song that will always live in my heart and record collection. It was also the very first album I ever brought, just had to have the whole album because WDOLG was just not enough of the Supremes for me. ” Baby Love” , ” Stop in The Name of Love”, Come See About Me” just fantastic Supremes at their very best. Thank you Nixon for a 10 on this and Thank you Supremes for my first love ! . ( Have no idea where she is today.. uhh so sad )
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In 1992, when I finally broke down and capitulated to the CD era, it was, as I said elsewhere here, Motown’s 4-disc “Hitsville USA” set that forced me too.
It spanned the time from “Money” to Rare’s Earth’s “I Just Want To Celebrate” and included 104 songs, all in their original, mono single mixes. It could have easily gone eight discs without a moment of boredom. It did an admirable job of reviving long neglected gems from the Elgins, the Velvelettes, the Contours’ “First I Look At The Purse,” and similar material.
But it did so only with an obvious effort not to let the set get top-heavy with too much Supremes. And there, it went a little too far. “Where Did Our Love Go” -astoundingly- was not on it. It also skipped “Stop In Name Of Love,” “Back In My Arms Again,” “I Hear A Symphony,” “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” “Reflections,” “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me,” and “Someday We’ll Be Together.” I had a lot of spending to still do.
It’s telling that when a second set appeared, Motown had to allow itself the time frame of 1971 through 1992 to fill four more discs, and even then the amount of presumed ‘classics’ among them was plainly suspect.
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It’s a potential pitfall of the blog, too – as previously discussed, the 10s are my personal top fifty Motown sides (my own version of Motown 50), and as John mentioned above, too much Supremes gets too rich, but then too little is just pointless iconoclasm, controversy for the sake of it. The compilers of the real Motown 50 album faced a similar problem, the “fan vote” that was supposedly to determine the tracklisting so stocked with Diana, Flo and Mary (and Cindy, and Jean) that they ended up having to pare back the number of Supremes tracks to ensure proper representation.
I don’t know what people will make of the eventual composition of my own top 50, which contains what I think is a fair sampling of Supremes without overdoing it, but I hope I’ve got the balance right. Time will tell!
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Aha! I didn’t realize that you were limiting yourself to only 50 ’10s’…. This goes a long way to explaining several otherwise inexplicable 9s!! It will be interesting for the rest of us to undertake a similar exercise; if one limits oneself to only 50, there must be some wrenching excisions!
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When I originally started playing with the idea of giving out marks, I had a figure closer to 25-30 in mind!
I do think you need to restrict the top marks in an exercise like this, lest they become meaningless. There are so many borderline calls that ended up getting 9s, we might easily have ended up with a hundred 10s or more…
Anyway, enough navel-gazing from me! New entries coming soon.
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(I’ve now amended the “Marks Out Of Ten” page, linked to from the menu bar at the top of the screen, to explain the marking scheme in much (much!) more detail.)
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In the UK, there was a cover version of “Where Did Our Love Go” by Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers. which was performed on Top of The Pops, and was widely thought likely to become the hit.
The fact that the Supremes won out was largely because (a) British radio with the advent of the pirate stations was giving greater exposure to US originals, and (b) the Peter Jay record was by far the worst-ever cover of a Motown number.
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Wow, I’m learning a lot today! Goodness me, that is some dismal, dismal, dismal crap right there.
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Actually, the worst version of this or any other Motown record, past, present or future (we should be so lucky!) is Adam Ant performing Where Did Our Love Go on Motown 25! Go on, have a think; take a week, a month or a year if needbe, I bet you cannot come up with worse!
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By my reckoning, the worst-ever cover of a Motown song was actually perpetrated by Motown themselves, but it’ll be a while before we get there. Ooh, cryptic.
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Equally cryptically, by my reckoning the runner-up for worst-ever cover of a Motown song is a Motown a-side that’s a cover of a Motown b-side.
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Ooh, tantalising. Do let us know when we get there!
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I agree that the Adam Ant version from Motown 25 is dreadful!!!! I did love the part where Diana Ross snuck onto the stage while he was performing & danced with him for a minute.
There is actually a good version of this song by the Lettermen, of all people. I know it is hard to imagine but they manage to pull it off.
Just want to encourage you Mr. Nixon. You are doing a great job with this site!
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We got there. The record in question was Tony Martin’s “Ask Any Man [Girl]”.
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First of all, Motown is part of the driving force that got me in to Radio Broadcasting however, by the time I began my career on the air which was in 1972, Motown had already had its day in the Sun.
As far as “Where Did Our Love Go” by the Supremes, this is one those recordings that you only want to hear in the Original Single Mix…Those claps at the beginning,all eight of them make you wonder, how did Holland Dozier Holland come up with that effect..It reaches out and slaps you silly.
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According to studio lore (and Earl van Dyke, albeit speaking some years after the fact), it was Mike Valvano stomping on a pair of two-by-fours rigged up with springs between them and then drenched in echo to sound like handclaps.
And yes, the original mix is the only one that matters. The mono mixes on The Complete Motown Singles box sets are the reference listening copies for all reviews unless otherwise indicated, if anyone cares.
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Van Dyke (again years after) also said the Funk Brothers didn’t think much of the song. I wish I had that interview somewhere.
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Absolutely agree about mono.
If you want to be a happy Motown fan where the 60s material is concerned, you have to have the mono versions first and most of all. Then, if you want to indulge some curiosity, get some stereo in addition. This is not to say there aren’t some pleasant surprises is some stereo mixes – there are. But there are at least an equal number of disappointments.
“Where Did Our Love Go” and “Baby Love,” in their vinyl stereo versions are two of them. Maybe, once upon a time, the gimmicky trick of ‘walking’ the sound from left speaker to right and back again seemed clever, but it also cost the songs plenty of sonic ‘punch.’
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I’am looking so forward to the upcoming Motown Single reviews especially Mono verses Stereo as there are some Stereo versions that are awesome however, few and far between..This is a great outlet for a motivated Motown fan! Thank you.
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In some cases, the Motown stereo mixes were done months (sometimes YEARS) after the single releases. Frequently the stereo versions were radically different: the Tempts’ “Just Let Me Know” (b-side of “The Way You Do”) had a different second half; “Love is In Our Hearts” (from “Supremes Sing H-D-H”) had an entirely different Ross lead; etc etc. And of course there’s that cluster(bleep) of a stereo mix on “Reach Out I’ll Be There” (improved decades later in the almost all-stereo “Motown Box”).
Being more of an LP collector (even as a kid), I tended to be more familiar with – and biased toward – the stereo versions than the mono singles.
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Yes, it does depend to a significant degree on what you’ve gotten used to.
I think my biggest disappointment was “Merry Christmas The Supremes” ( M 638). I was used to the mono version since 1966, and only got a stereo copy in 1973, and it made my heart sink. What I thought would be note-for-note what I was used to, simply opened up to two channels, turned out to be new lead vocals by Diana on almost every song -greatly oversung to my ears- and a lot of extra ooo’s and aahh’s that weren’t there before. In addition to the ‘deluxe’ CD of a couple years ago, I have two copies of the stereo vinyl, and three of the mono vinyl, decades old, all of them. I could sell the stereos on eBay as ‘near-mint’ with no exaggeration.
Who knows, maybe if I’d been seven years used to the stereo version first, I might not think the mono is perfect. But I do.
Speaking of eBay, about four years ago I scored a mono copy of the blue, two-LP “Greatest Hits” from 1967, which I’d been dreaming of for years. Excellent condition and damn rare in mono. By the spring of ’68 mono albums were obsolete and only DJs got those copies, and only then for a little while longer. Stock copy or DJ-promo, I have never seen a copy of the “Reflections” LP in mono.
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I too was more an album collector for a long time and it took me years to learn better, but collecting Stax/Volt cured me of believing that stereo mixes were as good. One too many (and to me, one was too many) of those fake-stereo albums Atlantic put out in the late ’60s took care of that. The alternate versions I find are sometimes very interesting, but overall they rarely seem to rise to the level of mono singles.
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Great review and same with all the other responses This is where the Supremes found their true calling at Motown after years of copying other label hitmakers and “what the hell where they thinking?” experiments.
What makes WDOLG work is it’s simplicity, unlike trying to knock us out of the house Vandellas style like “Lovelight” attempted to do. It plays to the strengths (and the weaknesses) of Diana, Flo & Mary instead of trying cover them up with too clever songwriting or production.
The same four bars over and over for 2:35 is almost trance inducing. I’ll go out on a limb to say WDOLG could be the great-grandma of a lot of disco, club and dance music.Later producers took this formula, stretched it and sped it way way up, but with little improvement over the original.
BTW in a interview with one of H-D-H, those heavy footstomps and handclaps were influenced by the Four Seasons. Their big hits used a lot of percussive effects to help make them jump out of the transistor AM radios and phonographs teenagers had at the time, and it made it more danceable.
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This song made me a lifetime fan of Diana Ross. I was fourteen when this record was number one on WLS Chicago. I couldn’t wait for 10:00 pm to listen to the countdown.
That intro and her voice was like nothing I had heard up until then. Coming from Canada we didn’t hear a lot of black music on the radio. Motown changed all of that and has given me an interest in all things Motown. I thought the Supremes were class personified. What a string of hits, Where Did Our Love Go remains one of my favourites to this day. My World is Empty Without You and Reflections are next in that order. Thank you for this awesome sight, I couldn’t believe my good luck finding it.
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Those are two of my favourites too. Thanks Richard.
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Yes! Midway through that summer, Art Roberts, the WLS disc jockey, suddenly listed not only the night’s Number Five and Number Four phone request (and played Number Three, Two and One), but for the first time, he also mentioned Where Did Our Love Go, which received massive numbers of votes, though not enough to be one of the Top Five. (It was the first time I’d heard of the song or the group, and after several nights, my interest was piqued, to say the least.)
Then, for a few nights it was Number Five or Four, and my curiosity mounted. So one evening I promised myself I’d keep listening until he played it — which he did immediately after playing the Number One request.
The song was the first, ever, to leap off my radio and under my skin. It was so infectious, haunting and memorable! Immediately, I was hooked by Diana’s voice, and the almost eerie sound of Florence and Mary’s repetition of the title in each verse. It was unlike anything I’d heard before. There was so much energy in that recording, and there was so much sensuality (although I was a bit too young to realize that at the time), and it was irresistible. By the time Come See About Me came along, however, I acknowledged that, yes, Diana’s voice was sexy!
A day or two after first hearing Where Did Our Love Go, I mentioned it to my friends, who were ever-so-fascinated by The Beatles, a pleasant enough but nothing-special group as far as I was concerned, and my friends lacked my enthusiasm; I don’t know why. But the song had possessed me, and as it climbed to Number One on both the evening phone requests and on the “Silver Dollar Survey” (i.e., the Top 40 for the week), I felt a sense of vindication and triumph that I’d never sensed before. And each single after that through Forever Came Today seemed to grab me, as well, although none came with the shock and surprise that accompanied Where Did Our Love Go. That one was so fresh and vibrant, emerging from a sea of nothing-special songs, and the others, while exciting, were what I came to expect from Diana Ross and The Supremes.
My favorite singles were 1. Reflections, 2. Come See About Me, 3. Some Day We’ll Be Together, 4. StopI In The Name Of Love, 5. Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart and 6. My World Is Empty Without You, but Where Did Our Love Go continues to touch me to this day as well. And, of course, I still thrill to almost all of the Supremes’ output, except for Buttered Popcorn, The Man With The Rock ‘n Roll Guitar and perhaps one or two others.
Thanks for reviving my memory of WLS and hot summer nights, and thanks for the excellent essay about this song, in particular!
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@benjaminblue—coolest-motown-memory-yet!!!!
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Finally we’ve struck gold…or platinum in this case! I must say your essay is well-written and pure ecstasy to read. Like you said above we’ve been waiting to breathe a sigh of relief and it’s finally here. I can only imagine how the girls felt once this became a hit. I love seeing clips of them perform this song in “64 because they aren’t fully polished yet, but you can see them beaming of sheer bliss because they finally have a hit and are liked the world over.
I’m only 22, but I can honestly say I have never heard a song like “Where Did Our Love Go” it’s truly unique. I can also say that I have never seen Miss Ross interpret this song the same live either. Like you said above this was a “one shot one take that can never be duplicated again” type of song.
It is truly amazing how life works out. Up until this point the girls were trying to sound like what they thought people would want, but they never caught on because there sound was still unique. Then they get a song that they think is crap and don’t put their heart into it…or at least that’s what they thought. Even though they didn’t want to sing “Where Did Our Love Go” the emotion comes through brilliantly on the record. They aren’t too happy and you hear it, yet they aren’t trying to convey sadness either. “Where Did Our Love Go” was no act, but truth and that is why the record buying public bought it. After all the disappointments, envy and pain Diane, Florence and Mary had arrived and the totem pole of Motown was never the same again.
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It has always irritated me that Motown never used question marks in its titles.
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Marvin Gaye would probably agree with you – Motown stripping the question mark from the In Our Lifetime? LP was cited as a major factor in the breakdown of his relationship with the label.
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I came to the Supremes at age nine in September 1966. I had a crush on a girl who’s friend had a 45 player in her garage. At the time I was pretty ambivalent about pop music, mainly liking what my older brothers liked. This friend had two new records: “See you in September” and “You Can’t Hurry Love” . The latter sent me in a tailspin I never recovered from. I asked for the song for Christmas and got the A’Go-Go album. I wore that record out. ( I’ve always liked the single version better –the bass and the flutey refrain seemed more out front.) The one thing that I did like about the Lp was the record sleave with all the previous album covers on it. I stared at it hard and long until I could figure out the other songs The Supremes did. I’d ask my siblings how did “Come See About Me” go? Or “I Hear A Symphony”? Regarding “Where Did Our Love Go”? I never heard it until the next Christmas, when I got the “Greatest Hits” album. At the time it sounded a little alien to me: simple arrangement, no tambourines. Now, however, it’s one of my favorites. It’s one of 4 or 5 Supremes records I didn’t get tired of at one time or another. They are all good —– some are great. Thanks very much for this blog. I look forward to more.
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Thanks David! A David L to go with regular contributors Dave L and David Bell… This could get confusing 🙂 glad you’re enjoying the blog!
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Another cover version—-Brenda and the Tabulations first Lp in 1967 (Dry Your Eyes) contains a version of WDOLG. Don’t bother spending any money on it unless you’re into Brenda Payton.
This if a true 10/10—Diana and her girls and Martha and her girls ruled the summer of ’64!!
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Hi ! I mentioned up above the Lettermen’s version which seems like it would never work. But their version is actually pretty good. If you can find it on Youtube you should check it out. I know it is easy to write off the Lettermen as boring MOR but they did have some gorgeous harmonies which I am sure were doo-wop influenced. They also did a version of “Everything Is Good About You” which actually fit their style quite well.
It is easy to forget that some snooty rock critics used to complain about Motown back in the day that it was “too white” or “too schmaltzy” or whatever. Of course, nowadays rock critics tend to fall all over themselves praising Motown, which is great but many times they still seem clueless about the music beyond the big hits.
Oh well. Thankfully we have Motown Junkies for us true Motown-ites!
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Hi! Thanks for the tip. I checked it out and wasnt too bad. I had not realized that the Lettermen were still actively recording as late as 1971. I had stopped hearing them on the radio and seeing them on Tv sometime in the mid ’60’s save for the occasional guest spot on a holiday special hosted by Andy Williams or whoever.
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I’m with you Landini. It is quite possible to be a James Brown fan, and still appreciate some Lettermen music too. They’re like the Carpenters in one respect: you’d sugar overdose if you sat down to listen to all their stuff at one sitting, but one at a time on the radio, and bracketed by more muscular rock and roll to and fro, they had some nice sound.
Their vocal version of “A Summer Place,” in the summer of ’65 was as welcome as the Motown hits, the Beatles and DC5, the irresistible candy of Gary Lewis & the Playboys, and actually, far less annoying than “I’m Henry VIII I Am” and Freddie & the Dreamers.
Their vocal version of Bill Pursell’s “Our Winter Love,” “The Way You Look Tonight,” “When I Fall In Love,” “Hurt So Bad” and “Goin’ Out of My Head” – all nice records. i don’t have many, but I make no apologizes for my Lettermen records.
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Also, The Lettermen recorded Reflections, Love Is Here And Now You’re Gone and, in a medley with The Way We Were, Touch Me In The Morning.
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Must disagree with you, Mr. Landini, on the Lettermen’s version. Like trying to cover chocolate with vanilla.
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Lots of times you don’t see the next big thing coming; I recall a cartoon in the newspaper depicting a group of dinosaurs pointing and laughing at a small furry creature walking past while simultaneously one of the dinosaurs notices it is starting to snow. H-D-H had it right in their hands but no one else knew it. When the Supremes remarked on it being a Children’s song they couldn’t foresee what was coming – The planting of seeds in a whole next generation of listeners! I know there are a lot of posters on here older than I am (54) that speak from a different perspective but Motown songs reinforce my childhood memories so deeply, like the one going with my Mom to register for Kindergarden in West Oak Lane, Philadelphia (Aug/’64). Thank You.
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I was already 18 in 1964, but, nevertheless, Motown was the sound of my young life, starting in 1959. And Berry Gordy and his soon-to-be Motown crew (Eddie and Brian Holland, Popcorn Wylie, Herman Griffin, The Five Stars/ Voice Masters, Freddie Gorman, Marv Johnson, Joe Hunter, Benny Benjamin, James Jamerson, Beans Bowles, and Jackie Wilson, back as early as 1957.
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hi motown fans, as I said in another post I was a wee brat living in england in 1964,pretty much out of touch with the US music scene…except my california cousins used to send us beach boys 45s. we sent them beatles 45s but they told us the beatles would never catch on lol. so when we came back to states in July of 64 and got a new car to drive from new jersey to california, me and my brother were just amazed at the radio, which was nothing like british radio. one day driving where did our love go came on and I must say hearing for the first time was like the voice of god coming thru the speakers. all the way across the country we scanned that poor radio looking for that song. From new jersey to california
the songs we loved the most were where did our love go, i get around/dont worry baby, a hard days night/i should have known better, and rag doll. ah the exciting days of lost youth lol
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Happy 50th Birthday Motown 1060! 🙂
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Thank You for that David L. Salut !!!
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Sorry, Dave L.
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Way back in August ’64, as a 15 yr-old teenager, I atttended the Dick Clark Caravan of Stars show at the Bushnell Memorial Auditorium in Hartford, CT. Sure enough, there were Brenda Holloway and the Supremes included in the group of “other acts”. The headliner at the time was none other than Connecticut’s own Gene Pitney. Anyway, these “other acts” pretty much opened the show, leaving the headliner to close it all. The Supremes sang “When the Lovelight Starts Shining…” followed by “Run, Run, Run” (I think) and the just-released “Where Did Our Love Go”. The crowd enthusiastically welcomed this unbelievable foot-stomper. Shortly afterwards, as the song gained momentum on the radio charts, sure enough, the Supremes ended up topping the bill on the Caravan of Stars bus tour! So fortunate to have been there at the right time!!
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I like the song, a lot, remembering when it was #1. But, I have always thought Too Many Fish In The Sea was a much better song. In fact, it’s my favorite Motown song, and there were dozens of great Motown songs, if not much more. Just a personal opinion.
I enjoy the total analysis though.
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Just one thing: it’s 8 bars
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