Tags
Motown M 1066 (A), September 1964
b/w Ask Any Girl
(Written by Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Edward Holland Jr.)
Stateside SS 350 (A), October 1964
b/w Ask Any Girl
(Released in the UK under license through EMI / Stateside Records)
Pop music is fickle. The magnificent big break can happen to anyone if the cards fall right – it’s following up that’s the real trick. History is littered with one-hit wonders, destined to forever be remembered for that one shining moment.
There’s an excellent running joke on Soulful Detroit, which involves pretending this song is a seldom-heard Northern Soul rarity, a clandestine treasure shared secretly by collectors in the know. A new Supremes compilation CD coming out? “Ooh, I hope they include obscure and hard-to-find tracks like Baby Love!” What’s your favourite Supremes song? “You might not know it, but I really like Baby Love – it’s a shame you never hear it on the radio!” And so on.
The joke works, of course, because this, the Supremes’ follow-up, is the most overplayed of all Motown records. I mean, that lost tribe they found deep in the Amazon rainforest a few years ago have probably heard Baby Love by now. As I said when we were discussing the Supremes’ aforementioned big breakthrough hit, Where Did Our Love Go, Baby Love has become a kind of default Motown record. It’s a go-to choice, not just for DJs, but for many listeners too, a musical synecdoche standing for all of the Supremes’ sixteen years of recorded output – and for every other Motown act as well, popping up whenever the label’s name is mentioned. For better or worse, in the minds of many fans, Baby Love IS Motown.
In the midst of all this, the average listener having gone through their lives already exposed to something approaching saturation coverage, it’s easy to forget the most important thing about Baby Love: it’s a great record. A killer pop song that ladles out its emotional punches in precisely-weighed parcels, it takes its predecessor’s blank canvas and turns it out in two directions: the icing-sugar bounce of the music, and the dark masochism of the lyrics. The combination of billowy pink light and jagged satin darkness is something to behold, but in the end it all boils down to this being Where Did Our Love Go taken to new heights, with a better tune. It couldn’t miss.
WINDING UP
The song was originally cut in July 1964, during the album sessions which accompanied the slow rise of Where Did Our Love Go up the charts, the Holland-Dozier-Holland writer/producer team coming up with what is pretty much a straight remake with a couple of new ideas mixed in. Once again, and this is astonishing, the Supremes didn’t want to do it. The feeling seems to have been that they’d indulged HDH in one 4/4 nursery rhyme, amid much sulking and tears, and they weren’t in the mood to do another one. Listening to that original recording, clearly intended as nothing more than a soundalike sequel to the big hit, there’s certainly a lack of enthusiasm, but then maybe they had a point. The original version of Baby Love was cut after another 4/4 stomper was already in the can, both more adventurous in its outlook and more conventional in its structure. Come See About Me was probably never intended to be a single; I’ve no idea whether the same was ever true of Baby Love, or whether this was meant to be the follow-up single all along.
That original version, finally released on the 40th Anniversary CD edition of the Where Did Our Love Go album (left), is a revelation, and not because it’s particularly good or anything (it isn’t); rather, it throws the achievements of the 7″ version we’ve all heard so many hundreds of times into sharp relief. The original is softer than the cut we know, relying on the familiar, delicately plinky sugar plum piano chimes instead of Where Did Our Love Go‘s pounding foot stomps to keep time – and it’s slower, too, almost imperceptibly, but enough to suck the energy out of the song when combined with the softer approach. The sax struggles to make an impact, as though it’s being careful not to disturb anyone. Diana Ross sounds disinterested, too artfully poised and posed to really be feeling this pain. Flo and Mary somehow end up with even less to do than on Where Did Our Love Go, hidden right back in the mix where they should be carrying the song. Most noticeably, the riveting four-bar (BEAT!)-Ooooo-ooooo-ooooh! bit, the bit which anchors the whole song and buys the audience’s attention for the intricate chorusverse that follows, is completely missing.
After listening to the acetate, Berry Gordy promptly expressed his dissatisfaction, berating the HDH trio for “burying their hook”. The end result was that Brian, Lamont and the girls were recalled to the studio three weeks later to do the whole thing over again, and this time to do it right.
But three weeks is a long time in pop music. By this time, Where Did Our Love Go was all over the airwaves and well on its way to becoming the Number One record in America, and the Supremes had gone from the bottom of the Dick Clark package tour bill to the top in remarkably short order. Now, when the group and producers reconvened after their short break, there was an extra ingredient in the Supremes’ mix that hadn’t been there before: a confidence, bordering on arrogance, that comes with being the best group in the world. It was as if Diana Ross had known it all along, and everyone else was only finally catching on. Took you long enough, she seems to be saying, what kept you?
…AND HERE’S THE PITCH
The “new” version, the single version everyone would soon come to know, is much less of a retread of the earlier hit, and much more its own creature. Whoever decided to bring Mike Valvano back to stomp on those two-by-fours and bring back the muscular, driving thump of Where Did Our Love Go to run underneath the high, twinkling piano and James Jamerson’s deliciously rich, sonorous upright bass (some of his most beautiful, clever work to date), they are a genius.
Despite the parent LP already being in stores, Baby Love was a massive, massive hit, outselling its predecessor within weeks of release, sailing to the top of the Hot 100, the Cash Box R&B chart and the UK Top 40 (Motown’s first British Number One), landing the group on the front cover of Billboard and forever ending their days of low-budget package tour drudgery. It’s easy to see why – because it grabs you straight away, sounding both exactly like Where Did Our Love Go and simultaneously no other record had ever sounded. It’s not just that there are hooks everywhere, it’s that the record is pretty much nothing but hooks; the circular, hypnotising backbeat of Where Did Our Love Go now augmented with a whole bunch of other things which deserve attention.
STRIKE ONE – BATTER WASN’T READY
It’s got a sound all of its own, this record. I don’t mean it’s different from other records, or uniquely styled, or whatever, I mean it literally has a sound on it I haven’t heard anywhere else: that piano, that bass, the guitars, all chiming in together in a crotchet pulse on the beat, sounds new. Whether this is something the Funk Brothers cooked up themselves, or whether Holland-Dozier-Holland dreamed it up one night, Baby Love has the good sense to recognise its riveting new sound and open with it right away, four bars of beautiful foreboding – some of the prettiest tunesmithery we’ve yet seen, let’s not undersell it, it’s a lovely little melody – leaving the listener already off their guard. It never shows up again on its own throughout the song, perhaps because its work in wordlessly piquing your interest and breaking your heart is already done; to repeat it would maybe be to dilute it.
But then it all drops away, leaving just Diana Ross and the stomping, for a long, exposed four-bar stretch which Diana has to cross with nothing but three beats of ooooohs, stretching and reaching for the drum fill that starts the song proper. Any of the critics who’ve ever denigrated Miss Ross’s singing voice – and there are lots of them, including me – must concede that nobody could have possibly done that bit any better than Diana Ross manages it here. It’s magnificent. The listener’s rocked back on their heels here, dazed and highly suggestible; time for the song to make its move.
STRIKE TWO, CAUGHT SWINGING
Over the course of doing this site, I’ve found it’s easier to get people to agree with you when you’re (essentially) agreeing with them, pandering to pre-existing notions of what’s good and what’s not so good. This one’s a Beloved Motown ClassicTM, and giving it a good review is the easy way out; it also feels somehow superfluous, as if I were writing something for a fanzine, as if I’d be better off indulging in a bit of iconoclasm and pointing out all the reasons this isn’t so great. But I find Baby Love captures the spirit of Motown in 1964 better than any other record, and I feel a need to just remind everyone who might have become jaded with hearing this over and over and over again, might have become somehow desensitized, immune to its charms, remind you what a great pop single this really is.
When it starts up in earnest after that remarkable intro, it’s just a rolling barrage of hooks, a thundercloud complete with its own silver lining, all feeling so precisely arranged and neatly-clipped that it’s an actual shock to realise it’s actually so densely woven, so many different parts and themes and emotions dovetailing in and out of each other as to make it almost impossible to follow just one thread through the record, so that those Oooooooooh breaks come as a welcome respite, a clear-the-decks priming for another impossibly rich sugar rush. Something like that.
Plus, a really, really anguished lyric, once more given full vent by Diana Ross and her severely underrated ability to convey such things, except that a goodly proportion of listeners don’t seem to notice, taking it as a simple love song. Baby Love is a love song alright, but it’s a song of complete, self-destructive, all-consuming passion, not a devoted cuddle for Valentine’s Day. Despite the facade of her managing to keep it together, the narrator’s pride is already gone, if it comes down to it, and this is a last-ditch attempt to rekindle the fires of passion in the mind of some idle tossrag we never get to meet; they don’t even get a description, the song only reflecting their image in the trauma of Diana’s pleading.
It’s a mixture of measured, pretend cool and barely tethered heartbreak. Right from the start, she’s in pieces – I need ya, oh, how I need ya, she coos, romantically, seductively, before immediately pulling the rug out from under the listener: …But all you do is treat me bad / Break my heart and leave me sad / Tell me, what did I do wrong?
It’s already all her fault, whether it actually is or not. She throws herself completely at the mercy of her “baby, love”, and there’s no telling how far she’s prepared to go in knowingly sacrificing her happiness for the chance to be with The One. When she half-sings, half-cries ‘Til it’s hurting me / ‘Til it’s hurting me at the end, it can be taken in two ways: she’ll plead until it hurts, or (since it feels we’re already past that point), she’ll put up with her Baby Love’s foul behaviour until it hurts. A feminist statement it certainly isn’t; what it is is decidedly powerful stuff, and it sets a pattern for a few other future moments of Supremes greatness, the marriage of a dark, heart-wrenching lyric to an irrepressibly bouncy, lovely tune.
STRIKE THREE, YOU’RE OUT OF HERE
It’s not as simple as just “disguising” some downbeat lyrics in a happy-sounding tune – that would be a neat trick, sure, but nothing for the ages. This, though, is songcraft on another level. This is about what happens when you do connect with the lyric, when you realise this is a woman on the edge, and how the same driving energy that made this sound like a summer radio hit coming out of your car on a sunny day can also convey the propelling emotional force of Diana’s impending breakdown. It’s not inappropriate; rather, it’s as though the apparent contradiction in such a weird juxtaposition makes everything all the more powerful. Anguish is powerful, driving pop music is powerful, so let’s not shy away from either out of modesty. There’s no modesty here, the narrator’s already left that far behind; why not illustrate her mood with an unstoppable pop masterpiece, rather than a maudlin pity ballad? Motown did this better than most, and the Supremes – when paired up with HDH – did it best of all.
All that being said, I’d be interested to know if this was a big hit in non-English-speaking territories – it certainly sounds as though it could have been. It’s a winner whether you ignore the words, or whether you listen to them intently and try to get to the heart of this character line by line. There’s not a wasted moment here, even the pauses for you to catch your breath (you, the listener, that is; the Supremes don’t need anything as prosaic as oxygen) are laid in place with the precision of a master watchmaker. There’s even less of a real chorus here than in Where Did Our Love Go – or maybe the song is nothing but chorus. Whatever, it’s a similarly never-ending rush, but the emphasis has changed; this time it’s got a really strong tune to go with the body blows.
The rest of it is just hook after hook after hook after hook, like the demented skip in Diana’s voice giving rise to a bunch of pretend key changes that only last a couple of instrumental bars, or the sax solo that somehow follows three different lines – the piano, Diana, and Flo and Mary’s backing vocals – for a few notes at a time, filling in so seamlessly, or…
Well, let’s just stop and enjoy those backing vocals for a moment, Flo and Mary relishing the elevation of the Baby baby / Baby baby chant from Where Did Our Love Go into something more like a work of art, not just a backdrop for Diana to do her thing but a kind of ramp for her to support herself and pick up speed. Unlike that abortive first go, here they’re mixed right to the front, and when they sing their lovely countermelody – Don’t throw our love away / Don’t throw our love away / Baby baby baby baby / Baby love, my baby love…, going from opposition to unison, playing off Diana and then joining in with her pleading, it’s not only riveting, it’s irresistible. Play it and see if you, or anyone else in the room, can stop themselves swaying and humming along. I bet you’re probably singing it now.
PERFECT GAME
By my reckoning, looking at it as objectively as I can manage, the Sixties Supremes made several records better than this one. They aren’t my favourite Motown group, even though they made several of my favourite Motown singles; when the touch of greatness has left the building, most often after 1967, I often find them annoying. The good things about a great Supremes track can often, with very little extra effort, become the bad things about a dismal Supremes track. And, on paper, this record underscores everything that’s irksome about the quintessential Motown group. It’s cute, it’s precious, it’s so restrained that it essentially divorces its music from its lyrical subject matter, meaning many in the audience don’t realise what it’s about. And, of course, it’s everywhere, and has remained so for nearly fifty years – and unlike Where Did Our Love Go, it never yields up anything new any more, I feel like I know this back to front and inside out.
None of those things can stop this from being great, one of the very best Motown singles. Not only are they not enough to stop it being great – no, all of those things actively work in its favour. I couldn’t tell you why – I get the sense that there is songwriting alchemy at work here far beyond anything I’m able to comprehend – but this has somehow been made perfect, taking everything good about the Supremes to the absolute limits of tolerance and not a millimetre further, so that instead everything is just… It’s just wonderful, isn’t it?
It’s cute and precious because its narrator wants to come across that way, but she’s fraying at the edges trying to keep a smile on her face even as she’s in physical pain. It’s restrained because there’s no fight in Diana here – oh, she’s desperate alright, but when it comes down to it, she’s going nowhere no matter what this guy does to her; she’s his for as long as he’ll have her, and she’s already lamenting because she knows how stupid and irrational this is; the way she articulates her words, both high and soft and vulnerable and determined all at once, when she sings Loneliness has got the best of me, my love, it sounds like her heart really is broken, and yet she’s only a hair’s breadth away from a completely emotionless reading. It’s amazing.
And so what if it’s been heard a million times? When a tune is this strong, when the performances are this good, the record was obviously designed to be heard a million times. Everyone involved knew they were making something superb, Ross and Jamerson in particular are almost nonchalant in their brilliance. You can’t help but admire it. Plus, while it’s easy enough to play out in your head, reducing it to a deceptively simple singalong like Where Did Our Love Go, well, when it’s actually on the radio, you’ve always got a free-buffet choice of whatever different elements you want to follow this time, this play, this verse, this line, which keeps it magical.
Terrifying to think that the Supremes haven’t even reached their peak – really, in terms of their all-conquering imperial phase as the greatest pop group in America, they’ve only just got started – and their best work is still to come. And yet there’s literally nothing wrong with this, not a single thing; instead, everything in its right place, everyone on top form, magic elevating an interesting song into a truly great one.
This is one of Motown’s most famous singles simply because it’s one of Motown’s best singles. I don’t care how many times it gets played, it’s as much of a thrill the first time as the 350th, and that’s pretty much the definition of magical.
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.
(Or maybe you’re only interested in The Supremes? Click for more.)
 |
 |
| Stevie Wonder “Sad Boy” |
The Supremes “Ask Any Girl” |
DISCOVERING MOTOWN |
|---|
Like the blog? Listen to our radio show! |
| Motown Junkies presents the finest Motown cuts, big hits and hard to find classics. Listen to all past episodes here. |
Motown Junkies 
I actually wrote this, weird baseball-related headings and all, before the actual perfect game that was thrown by Philip Humber three days ago, before listening to the game later that night and getting slightly freaked out.
This is shorter than the Dancing In The Street piece, anyway.
LikeLike
Wait a minute–a baseball fan in the UK????
LikeLike
Oh, I love baseball. A beautiful game, in the strictest dictionary sense of the word; I also find it alternately exhilarating and calming. Whether this has any bearing on my Motown tastes, you’ll have to decide for yourselves… 🙂
LikeLike
If you like Philly, you may be interested in the Intruders’ “Love Is Like A Baseball Game” (Gamble 217).
LikeLiked by 1 person
I do like that! Thanks, Youtube. “Three strikes you’re out!”
LikeLike
I agree as Baby Love was a great record and follow-up to Where did our Love Go, I don’t however see how anyone can use annoying and the supremes in the same sentence. I’m kinda freaked out about that,
LikeLike
Completely disagree on this one. It’s a horrible tune with Diana singing through her nose for all its worth. This should have been strangled at birth.Even the instrumental middle 8 is tired and cliched. Hate it with a vengeance and this is the song I disregard and avoid at every opportunity.
I think this is the only Supremes’ song I feel so strongly against. Give me the meaty Stop! In The Name Of Love any time.
Unsurprisingly, I’d give it 2 out of 10 at most.
LikeLike
🙂 I do wonder how many people will have been waiting for me to post something like that, and end up disappointed with the ten. Things get put on pedestals, people naturally want to knock them off again, and it’s boring joining in with a chorus of acclaim, greatness awarded by consensus and all that. Giving an all-conquering behemoth like this a high mark, as I said in the review, seems redundant, a missed opportunity for a bit of fun iconoclasm.
But if I’d put together a personal all-time Motown Top 50 and it somehow didn’t have this in it, then something would have gone fundamentally wrong. I think it’s brilliant. Brilliant.
There is definitely one Motown sacred cow, a mega-selling #1 hit, about which I feel the same way you do about “Baby Love”, and which is getting big red numbers at the end. Be interesting to see if anyone sees that one coming.
LikeLike
I get the feeling that “Baby Love” is thought of more highly in Britain than it is in America. I wonder if that’s true.
LikeLike
I couldn’t remember if you were in favour of “Baby Love” – I know one regular commenter (other than David above, that is!) was unimpressed but I wasn’t sure who it was.
That would be interesting – if this is somehow less regarded than “Where Did Our Love Go” in the US, it’d be kind of a mirror situation to the Beatles “She Loves You” (UK saturation) vs “I Want To Hold Your Hand” (US saturation)… but I always got the impression that if anything, this one is actually even more ubiquitous in the States than it is in the UK. Do let us know, readers!
LikeLike
In a reply to a comment on over-playing on the “Where Did Our Love Go” page, I said that I could never grow tired of “Baby Love”.
LikeLike
Have to agree with @David Bell’s disdain for this one. “Baby Love” annoys me to no end. I always skip it on my Anthology album. I wish I had a more sophisticated analysis, but all I can say is that the lyrics and arrangement are really, really treacly to the point of being grating. I would rate it inferior to even the ‘No-hit Supremes’ singles, to WDOLG, and to every other single, released and shelved, from their hitmaking era. Given all the love for it, my aversion is probably just a personal taste thing — so I won’t give a numerical rating. I’ll just say this: “Blegh”!
LikeLike
I was hoping you’d give this a 10, but after “Needle in a Haystack,” I wasn’t so sure! Yet your review was actually much more laudatory than mine would have been. “Baby Love” is so much a part of our modern popular music fabric that it’s somewhat beyond criticism. It’s undeniably catchy and hook-filled, and so brilliantly produced and performed that it (almost) disguises how relatively weak the song itself actually is. As you point out, after a few listens “Baby Love” has little capacity to surprise, unlike the (deceptively simple) “Where Did Our Love Go.” I’m not aware of any “Baby Love” covers, other than in a great scene in the underrated sequel “More American Graffiti,” where the song is sung as an impromptu protest by a bunch of college kids being arrested. Still, it’s hard to knock such a brilliant record, one in which those capricious forces, art and commerce, merge beautifully together.
LikeLike
I wish I’d written that last sentence – it would have been a great way to end the review. Thanks as always Nick!
LikeLike
An exhilarating (and brilliant) analysis of a song which I didn’t fully appreciate when it was new.. It does keep getting better and better, and you’ve indicated the subtleties and marvels which mark it out for greatness. I heard ‘I Want a Guy’ in the car yesterday, and although I cringe at some of the painfully out-of-tune singing, that opening plangent mini-melisma is prophetic, it encapsulates the sensual longing commingled with pain which is Diana’s trademark. I always took ’till it’s hurting me’ to be a sort of semi-masochistic plea, as in ‘it hurts so good…’ I think people fail to appreciate the sublimity of a certain kind of simplicity. You can hear it in Schubert, you can hear it in Percy Sledge (A Warm and Tender Love), and you can hear it here. Thanks for this, your sins against ‘Needle in a Haystack’ are fully forgiven…
LikeLike
I also feel the same way about the meaning of “til it’s hurting me”. I wish we had a course at my university that deals with deciphering and interpreting lyrics. That would be so cool = )
LikeLike
I have never tried to conceal my indifference to “Where Did Our Love Go”, which is very much a one-trick pony.
On the other hand, “Baby Love”, as so superbly reviewed above, is the complete package which time cannot diminish. It’s a near-perfect record, and I give it 9/10 as there is one thing which (some might say unfairly) prevents me from giving it full marks.
LikeLike
…ooh, you can’t just dangle that in front of us! What is the thing?
LikeLike
The one thing is the identity of another Supremes’ record that I like nearly twice as much as “Baby Love”. Don’t take my word…!!!
LikeLike
I love your suspense! I can’t wait to find out what your favorite Supremes track is. I’m sure I will be shocked (lol).
LikeLike
It wouldn’t by any chance be ‘Love Is lIke an Itching in my Heart’ would it? That’s my favourite – partly because of the glorious lyrics ‘Wake up in the moring/and I’m filled with desire….’ And partly because of the delicious nervousness that pervades its sensual undertow…..
LikeLike
“Love Is Like an Itching in My Heart” is one of my favorites too! I feel that is is such an underrated Supremes song. I’ll save the rest of my thoughts for the review (lol).
LikeLike
Great rhythm track, but…
LikeLike
That’s not it, right (lol).
LikeLike
…the lyrics are an irritation and, Damecia, I can’t scratch it 🙂
LikeLike
(LOL) = )
LikeLike
September of 1964, and now my family moves to the 3100 block of north 25th Street, Philadelphia, school grades five and six, and it’s in this house where the memory of every Supremes jewel from “Baby Love” to the first three weeks of “You Can’t Hurry Love” live. The house still stands (I checked on Google not long ago), I haven’t been in it since August 1966, but I could move through it blindfolded. We’re in the realm now we’re I’m immediately reminded of every friend, every teacher, every classroom with only the prompt of the Supremes song then a hit, including this one.
Across the street from my grade school was the neighborhood’s largest department store, Dick Crane’s, the kind of place conglomerates like WalMart consigned to the ash heap long ago (“Clothing you from cradle to grave”). I was walking through the store, down the center aisle than ran front door to back wall, and over on my right in the men’s department is where my ears first caught “Baby Love” coming over any radio. I was 10 years old, and that was 48 years ago. It doesn’t seem like I’m ever going to forget it.
I’ve been buying copies of it ever since, the last 45 version only in 1999, with its beautiful picture sleeve, for about $35, and every cent worth it.
Your review soars, Nixon, among your very best, giving this masterpiece its full due. It’s sad and also appropriate that you’re pulling up to this one just as Dick Clark passed away. He was a very good friend to Motown.
LikeLike
Your vivid response is a great example of the power music has and the impact it has on our lives.
LikeLike
Yay! I’m always pleased with a Supremes review (the initial reason I joined this blog lol). I couldn’t wait for class to end, so that I could respond to this review = )
Here we are presented with a song that was nearly 30 decades old when I was born, but this is one of the first songs that I can recall my mom singing to me as a toddler. From the moment that the enslaving intro, foot stomps, and, that incredibly swagged out sexy, “ooooh” Miss Ross gives at the beginning— this record is an instant winner!
A couple of months ago when I saw Miss Ross live, I got a thrill out of seeing the audience go crazy when they heard the opening notes of this song being played. Everyone was singing the entire song so joyfully and I was thinking to myself do they realize that this is really a sad tune? (lol). But, with this review Mr. Nixon has done a wonderful job in explaining why this track is brilliant. It’s all in the vocal delivery, instrumentation and the title.
Where did HDH get baby love from? Who actually calls someone baby love? (lol). Brilliant! In the beginning of the record Miss Ross starts off cool, but like Nixon says she starts loosing it emotionally toward the end. I wonder if this was consciously done on her part? She could have easily sung in a sad matter entirely. Regardless, Brilliant! Flo and Mary kill the background, especially those “Baby Baby’s” and those ending “Don’t throw our love away.” Brilliant! 1 of my favorite parts of the song is the break/ bridge when the music changes and right after Miss Ross says “I get this need” and then she goes into those 2 “ooohs” that are fantastic while Flo is doing her “ooohs” and Mary her “Yeahs” at the same time. Brilliant! Nixon could have wrote a whole review on that section alone.
This song is soooo great that I’ve written my longest response to date (lol). But that is what “Baby Love” does which is make you feel good. This song could be played anywhere in its 2:35 and there would not be a bad part. “Baby Love” is a piece of inescapable bliss that deserves it 10/10!
LikeLike
Damecia, that’s a great response to a great review, and you’ve pinpointed some really precious moments in this glorious song. Great backup singing (and giving backup singers inspiring and memorable things to do) is one more hallmark of Motown’s splendour.. ‘Don’t throw our love away’ is perhaps a sort of gentler rethinking of the immortal ‘Don’t pass up this chance’ at the end of ‘Heat Wave.’
LikeLike
Well, thanx that was pure enthusiasm typing (lol). I agree with “Don’t pass up this chance at the end of “Heat Wave” which is also a great song.
LikeLike
Damecia – if there’s anyone on this planet who can related to “pure enthusiasm typing”, it would be my wonderful brother. One of the many joys of this blog is the amazing comments section.
As for 144man above – I hope it’s Back in My Arms Again, with one of my favorite Supremes’ lines “Flo, she don’t know that the man she loves is a Romeo’!
LikeLike
(LOL) that is such a CLASSIC line!
LikeLike
Another great Supremes track, and there are so many more to come that are even better than this one. Say what you will, Diana Ross nailed these songs! I can’t wait for Reflections. Everytime I listen to Motown (any song) I can’t believe they are now oldies!! They all sound so awesome to this day and truly stand the test of time.
LikeLike
Exactly! Once Diana learned and developed her sound (check out the 9 flops before “Where Did Our Love To Go” to see what I mean) she was brilliant on these Supremes tracks. It really upsets me when people criticize her vocal abilities or say she can’t sing. Hello! This was the voice young America fell in love with.
I can’t wait for Reflections either! If I had to list my favorite Supremes songs in order “Reflections” would be #1. The lyrics alone are just awesome! You’ll hear the rest of my feelings in a couple of years when Nixon reviews it. (lol)
LikeLike
I’ll be 65 later this year; I hope I’ll still be around to give my [favourable] opinion on “Reflections” when it eventually gets reviewed.(lol)
LikeLike
We’re currently going along at a pace of roughly two Motown years to one real year, so if I can keep it up, then in theory we should get to “Reflections” in about two years’ time (accounting for the huge amount of singles released in 1965). In theory. So, er, hang in there, everyone.
LikeLike
I heard 65 is the new 45 so hopefully you will still be around. Besides I can tell you have a youthful spirit through your writing. Plus once “Reflections” gets reviewed I’ll be a happy camper and would love to hear what you think about my favorite Supremes song = )
LikeLike
I may grow old, but I’ll never grow up!
I’ll let you into a secret – “Reflections” is one of my favourite Supremes tracks as well.
LikeLike
Yay! = )
LikeLike
One of the easiest, surest ways to identify a great song (as opposed to a great recording) is to listen to a ‘live’ version.
By that measure, Reflections — the single that never sounded tired or rushed or anything but perfect during Diana Ross and The Supremes’ concert dates — is perhaps their greatest hit. And although Diana consistently flubbed one word in the various ‘live’ versions, getting the lyric right only one time in the numerous times she performed it, I still feel a thrill in hearing all of those ‘live’ versions.
The other singles that fared best during their concert appearances through the years were Come See About Me, Stop! In The Name Of Love, Back In My Arms Again, My World Is Empty Without You, Love Is Like An Itching In My Heart, Love Child and Someday We’ll Be Together. (Of course, they did not sing the last song long enough to get bored by it or to race through an abbreviated version of it.)
Occasionally, they performed their other singles reasonably well in concert, but the performances were always hit-and-miss, and the group never came close to matching the sound achieved in the studio. And I quickly grew weary of songs like Love Is Here And Now You’re Gone after hearing the ‘live’ versions, which were something of a mess.
Anyway, Reflections continues to be my favorite of their singles, both in the studio version and in the ‘live’ versions.
LikeLike
Speaking of the masochism in the lyrics, it is this very element that made it so much like someone throwing open a window when Aretha emerged barreling onto the scene in 1967. A great year to be 13 🙂
As perfect as “Baby Love” and many another Supremes side is, a substantial portion of their songs come down to the message, “he’s treating me like shit, and I don’t know what to do – hoo.”
Without question, many an errant fellow co-star in Aretha’s stories, but when she told her tales of an abusive lover, you felt less sorry for her than outright scared for him. Aretha always left little mystery that she knew exactly what to “do – hoo” about the guy, and he was either going to get his ass kicked or wind up with tire tracks over his torso!
This new kind of strength in female delivery -and at Motown Gladys Horton and especially Martha Reeves came closest to it before Franklin- didn’t diminish my cherishing any Supremes song in the least, but does explain how those little red Atlantic labels in my collection began piling up like the blue Motowns.
🙂
LikeLike
Great analysis that is sooo true. Btw I love your “do – hoo’s” (lol).
LikeLike
This is the one..This is the Landmark single that actually began the soundtrack of my life..I had just turned 14 in October of 1964 and I was at a girlfriends house and this was the song playing on her record player and it was the first time I had ever seen a Motown Label, with he map and the red star..and I thought at the time what a cool looking label.. from then on I was hooked.
I agree with the high rating on this however, over the years I’ve gotten somewhat tired of this song because of the over exposer but I still love it..It’s the flipside “Ask Any Girl” that has worn better with me..Motown obviously loved it so much because its on the “Where Did Our Love Go” Lp and then the first cut on “More Hits By The Supremes” ..One of my Motown favorite flipsides will be the next critque on Motown Junkies and I’ll be looking forward to seeing the rating..We’ll see
LikeLike
Agree “Ask Any Girl” is good record too!
LikeLike
I’m going to go with an 8 on this one, but a ten for Nixon’s review! Not my favorite Supremes song, but certainly up there on the patheon of Motown greats!
LikeLike
Yes ,”Baby Love” gets played more than most Motown records of that era, because people still like hearing it and it’s a great record. This is what 10/10 is all about! What’s amazing to me is there are a few Supremes 45’s that I like even more!
LikeLike
It amazes me too that some Supremes songs are better than this 1!
LikeLike
Just to supplement the nostalgia, the first week “Baby Love” pushes into the U.S. No. 1 Billboard pop spot (10-31-64), its contemporary memory-makers line up like this:
2. Do Wah Ditty Ditty – Manfred Mann
3. Last Kiss – J. Frank Wilson & the Cavaliers
4. We’ll Sing In The Sunshine – Gale Garnett
5. Dancing In The Street – Martha & the Vandellas ( still hangin’ on 🙂 )
6. Let It Be Me – Jerry Butler & Betty Everett
7. Have I The Right? – The Honeycombs
8. Oh Pretty Woman – Roy Orbison
9. Little Honda – The Hondells
10. Chug-A-Lug – Roger Miller
The week’s highest debut, an eventual No. 1 itself, was Lorne Greene’s “Ringo,” and the biggest mover ( 89 to 64) was The Dixie Cups’ “You Should Have Seen The Way He Looked At Me.”
🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow I didn’t know Lorne Greene was a singer. Just know him from Bonanza.
LikeLike
It isn’t singing; it’s a spoken-word,old-time Western tale about a maverick gunslinger, and one of the strangest records ever to top Billboard. But in those days, “Bonanza” was a ratings monster on the scale “American Idol” is today, and it couldn’t have possibly hurt the record at all that America happened to be entranced then with a moptop drummer from Liverpool of the same name (as well as his three bandmates).
LikeLike
(LOL) I should’ve known it was spoken.
LikeLike
Manfred Mann’s “Do Wah Diddy” is very much inferior to the Exciters’ original version.
LikeLike
I remember Lorne Greene as an announcer with The CBC. My mother dated him for a short while. He gave me a wooden carved lion that I still have. No, he couldn’t sing. But “Ringo” did sell amazingly well in USA. The power of being a celebrity sells.
LikeLike
Oh wow! That is so cool = ) If you don’t mind me asking, was your mom an actress? And yep the power of celebrity is amazing i.e. The Kardashians (LOL).
LikeLike
No. My mother was not an actress (she was a hockey mom, however). We lived in Winnipeg, Manitoba. A cousin of ours in Toronto knew Lorne. She was introduced through him.
Several CBC announcers became celebrities in USA: Robert McNeill and peter Jennings come to mind. We Canadians enunciate well and use proper grammar (lol).
LikeLike
(LOL) Love your humor here!
ABC World News hasn’t been the same since Peter Jennings (RIP) died.
LikeLike
Lorne Greene made several rcordings in which he did sing. In some of them he spoke as well, usually in introducing the song. Some of these records are available on YouTube. He was an accomplished actor; as a singer, I’m pretty certain that he will never be confused with Pavarotti.
LikeLike
After viewing that list, my only reaction, with the exception of #s 5 and 8, is to thank the Almighty that there was an entity named Motown.
LikeLike
When Baby Love hit the top of the UK chart, the rest of the Top Ten looked like this:
2. All Day And All Of The Night – The Kinks
3. He’s In Town – The Rockin’ Berries
4. Oh Pretty Woman – Roy Orbison
5. Sha La La – Manfred Mann
6. Um Um Um Um Um Um – Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders
7. Always Something There To Remind Me – Sandie Shaw
8. Walk Away – Matt Monro
9. Tokyo Melody – Helmet Zacharias
10. Don’t Bring Me Down – Pretty Things
Top new entries were Little Red Rooster – Rolling Stones at #24, which hit #1 two weeks later (dethroning The Supremes) and Pretty Paper – Roy Orbison at #34. Timing in the music industry is everything – would The Supremes have hit #1 if the release of Baby Love had been delayed by two weeks, when it faced competition from The Rolling Stones, or three weeks, when I Feel Fine by The Beatles came out? Very doubtful, and because of this, The Supremes may not have become as popular in the UK as they did.
LikeLike
Thanx for the UK history!
LikeLike
No less than 4 entries in the UK Top 10 were sub-standard covers of US chart entries.
“He’s In Town” had been a US hit for the Tokens; “Um Um Um Um Um Um” for Major Lance; “Always Something There to Remind Me”, which had been demoed by Dionne Warwick, reached the Top 100 by Lou Johnson; and, not content with ruining “Do Wah Diddy”, Manfred Mann made a lackluster version of the Shirelles’ “Sha La La”.
LikeLike
Thaks, Dave L! I’ll be singing doo wa diddy all day – driving my office mates out of their minds! And since most of them weren’t born when that song came out, they’ll wonder even more which planet I’m exactly from!
LikeLike
Graham’s list is extremely interesting, and proof that musical taste in our two counties never precisely mimics one another. Some acts -Rockin’ Berries, Zacharias and Pretty Things- are unknown here. The beginning of U.S. fame for other acts -Shaw, the Kinks and Manfred Mann- comes later or with other tracks. For Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders, it took “Game of Love,” but when that one arrives, they go straight to the top.
The reverse is true as well, though. I’ve long since read that the Ross solo singles, “I’m Still Waiting” (in the 1970s), and “Chain Reaction” (in the 1980’s) did robustly well in the U.K., while at home they both crapped out in the lower reaches of the Hot 100. For “Chain Reaction,” said to be one of Princess Diana’s favorite dance songs, this is sorely lamentable, as the record is a glorious throwback to the HDH/Supremes sound. I loved it instantly.
And of course, if it weren’t for our British cousins, Americans might never have discovered the ‘obvious’ hit that was The Miracles’ “Tears Of A Clown.”
LikeLike
The Pretty Things actually had a couple of releases on Rare Earth – their Parachute album was supposedly rated Album of the Year by Rolling Stone magazine and the single Private Sorrow was the first release on the Rare Earth imprint! Because they were signed via EMI, I’m assuming that is the reason none of their tracks appeared on TCMS.
I’m Still Waiting was a #1 for Diana, thanks largely to the efforts of radio DJ Tony Blackburn, who played it as an album track and effectively promised Tamla Motown that he’d continue to support it if they released it as a single. They did, he did and the rest as they say is history.
The difference between UK audiences/record buyers and their American counterparts is vast – how else to explain It Should Have Been Me making #5 in the UK and doing little or nothing in the US. There are countlesws other examples I could mention, but you get the general gist.
LikeLike
I forgot to state It Should Have Been Me by Yvonne Fair, by the way.
LikeLike
To bulk out Rare Earth’s launch catalogue, Motown licensed a whole bunch of European recordings from the EMI/Parlophone repertoire – the Pretty Things, the Cats, Toe Fat, lots of others. None of them were ever owned by Motown and so none of them could appear on TCMS. The appendices to the liner notes in TCMS 9 and 10 (and possibly 11A/B, I can’t remember) have a full list of the missing tracks and where they were meant to go. Needless to say, when it comes to Motown Junkies, I’ll be putting them back in.
With regard to the British Motown story, see my comment in response to Ron Leonard below – there is a huge divergence between the US and UK Motown catalogues after 1965, with lots of singles and B-sides in one country never seeing release in the other. And we’re going to cover them all. Wish me luck, guys.
LikeLike
What follows The Supremes and what diiminshes The “Politically Correct” ness of Supremes’ records is the mindset that they were female, did not write their own songs, did not play their own instruments or arrange their own songs. Therefore, they were never given credit for their contributions.
Play “Baby Love” today, in any local high school or college, and most of the students will either think youn are gay or old. Such is the mindset change from intelligence and artistry in the past to the “sit-on-the-toliet-mentality” music that is today. The students cannot relate to the bounce, vocals or arrangements of the song.
LikeLike
Last season, in the multi-Emmy winning TV series “Mad Men,” in a scene that takes place on the cusp of the May 1965 Ali-Liston fight, one of the characters in the show’s NY advertising agency remarks, “If I wanted to see two Negros fight, I’d toss a dollar bill out the window.” No one (all white, of course) within earshot of the remark even raises an eyebrow. In addition to the series’ unapologetic smoking and drinking, it is also distinguished by its very true-to-its-times casual racism even in its supposed “good guys.”
The days of “Baby Love” were certainly better mannered and genteel, but the world was your oyster only if you were white, male, heterosexual and relatively young. (Wealth, then and now, didn’t hurt either.) If you were anything else, well, what’s that current piece of boilerplate: “your experience may vary.” With you, floyjoy, I lament what was good and genuinely innocent about those days, but I know too that nostalgia, in its backward glances, almost never resists wearing rose-colored glasses.
In the pre-Nixon days of “Baby Love,” American presidents were beheld with a reverence of near-deities, battered women were told by doctors and clergy to go back home and ‘try harder,’ and if you were gay, you were both mentally ill and, in most places, a criminal, and the reaction was nothing gratitude if some priest wanted to take your son away for some weekend’s ‘adventure.’ . I’ll let a black poster my age (58) provide some samples of the racism.
The high and painful price of ripping the mask off of the evil and hypocrisy that lived under many a “Father Knows Best” and “Going My Way” façade has been a coarsening of society in virtually every industrialized nation -in and out of the realm of popular music- that I lament along with you, floyjoy. Sincerely.
I’m happy to say I passed through those times unharmed, a healthy and happy pre-pubescent kid. But given the chance to go back, I don’t think I could ever behold again what I experienced then with the same naïve innocence.
LikeLike
Great comment! In one of my courses we’ve been watching the Keep You Eyes on the Prize series and you are echoing most of the stuff that was said in the documentary about the 1960s and most of the things I know to be true. I didn’t know they talked that way on Mad Men. I guess you can say that they are portraying the times accurately while still perpetuating stereotypes.
LikeLike
You are sooo right! The same is true today if a male listens to Streisand, Ross, or Cher he’s automatically gay. It’s a shame some kids of my generation put negative connotations with mostly positive and great music from the past.
LikeLike
Thanks, Floyjoy, for a really interesting comment. Dave’s already covered most of what I wanted to say in response to that – in effect, the price of moving forward as a society by junking unwritten societal “rules” that had a racist, sexist, homophobic or otherwise discriminatory effect is a lessening of all societal rules on what is and isn’t proper behaviour. However distasteful I might find it, I’d gladly put up with a million instances of some thicko braggart with a 62 IQ saying “fuck” on the radio if we can keep everything else that’s changed since the Sixties.
There’s a great bit in Futurama where (main character) Fry is watching a (fictional) Pepperidge Farm commercial, and we hear the voiceover:
Do you remember a time when chocolate chip cookies came fresh from the oven? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Fry sighs wistfully… “Those were the days.” But then the voiceover continues:
Do you remember a time when women couldn’t vote, and certain folk weren’t allowed on golf courses? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Which pretty much nails it.
What I did want to add, though, is that I wouldn’t make that blanket assumption about “most of the students”. I’m pretty sure I’m younger than you (I’m in my early thirties, and also British), and this music right now is my life. Damecia is younger than me (and she’s a student), and she’s as passionate and articulate a Motown lover as you’ll find anywhere.
One of the great qualities of Motown, good Motown, is that it’s great music that transcends all boundaries of race, nationality and sexual identity as well as age. According to my visitor stats, I don’t think there’s a single country on the face of the planet where someone hasn’t looked up Motown Junkies. If we ever get to the stage where young men don’t want to listen to the Temptations in case their classmates think they’re gay, I think we’ll have officially failed as a species. But to be honest, I think we’ll be quicker to get to a stage where “gay” stops being a perjorative, never mind a stereotype. Don’t forget Smokey’s quote about white kids having to hide their Miracles albums from racist parents – back then, a young white boy listening to the Supremes might have been quite safe from people thinking he was gay, but he might well have earned himself a beating as a “n****r lover” or some such nonsense.
(We’ll be looking in quite a lot more depth at Motown and gay rights (much) further down the line, when talking about the Dynamic Superiors, Gaiee Records and “I Was Born This Way”, but that’s a story for another day, I guess.)
LikeLike
Wow! Mr. Nixon have you ever thought about teaching a course on Motown? You should, because this comment is just as interesting, accurate and most importantly truthful than most of the things found in history books about the 1960s era. Which I find gets highly romanticized, but isn’t that all things from the past?
Thank you for your kind comment = )
LikeLike
You are a wise man, sir. You remind me of my English teacher.
LikeLike
I realize this is a Motown page however, I’m enjoying seeing the U.K. Chart History..Above was mentioned Sandy Shaw, I remember her 45’s here in the states on the Reprise lable..I thoroughly enjoyed her version on “Always Something There To Remind Me” also, “Girl Don’t Come”..I loved her sound!!
Yes, Diana Ross with ” I’m Still Waiting” didn’t fair as well here as it’s did in the U.K. I believe that song was early 1971..”Remember Me” was another favorite. Thanks again for the critiques and more memories of our Pop music culture
LikeLike
It is to Sandie Shaw’s credit that once she had achieved her initial breakthrough with “Always Something There to Remind Me”, her subsequent hits were with original material rather than the inferior cover versions that were common in the UK charts as I’ve mentioned above.
LikeLike
Thanks Ron 🙂 I’m British, and a while back I decided I’d be covering a whole lot of late-Sixties and early-Seventies UK Tamla Motown releases and B-sides that never saw the light of day on American Motown 45s. (There are literally dozens of them, and they include album tracks we wouldn’t otherwise get to discuss, from big ticket acts like Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, the Miracles, the 70s Supremes, the Temptations, the Four Tops…)
LikeLike
The downside to this, Nixon, is it also means you’ll be covering some really obscure items, some of which even the artists concerned don’t remember, such as Slowbone The Wonder Boys, Hetherington, Leo Bendix (scheduled but never released) and others. You’ll recall from our email conversations I was trying to track down some of these; the email responses from some of the producers and writers beggar belief!
I’ll also be waiting with baited breath for your reviews of Irene Ryan and Albert Finney, to name but two! When you get to these and the above I mentioned, you’ll all realise just how diverse a company Motown really was – it wasn’t all about ‘Baby Love’ or ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’, that’s for sure!
LikeLike
There’s certainly a lot an unprepared world will be learning about Dan The Banjo Man, that’s for sure. But because I’ve made a crazy editorial decision and treated Tamla Motown releases as kosher for Motown/Not Motown purposes, we’ll also get to (belatedly) meet the likes of JJ Barnes and Laura Lee, which is nice.
LikeLike
I’ve always liked the Reflections and the San Remo Strings as well.
It’s going to be really hard not to miss anything even if you had just restricted yourself to US releases. The “Natural Resources” label had only one single issued, and there’s even a release on the Motown Yesteryear series (Bobby Darin),which had never previously been issued as by Motown as a single.
LikeLike
Sorry to arrive so late to the party but I’ll throw in my 2 cents! I went through a period where “Baby Love” made my Top Ten Worst Motown Songs of all time. I have given it another listen or two & feel like it is a very good production. Not a desert island song but it is much better than I originally thought.
LikeLike
Well here’s your dissent…
Where Did Our Love Go was a big hit, which means in typical Motown style the next one has to sound just like it. And that’s how Baby Love was born. This has all the hallmarks of being churned out with no other thought than to quickly follow up on its predecessor. It’s utterly empty. Nothing new is being said musically, and Diane’s cloying vocal cooing “baby love oohh baby love” is enough to turn my stomach. It’s not sexy, it’s not romantic, it’s just nauseating. One of the worst Motown records ever.
I’ll take Smokey Robinson’s “It” over this awful thing any day.
LikeLike
LMAO! Hi Gov. Shapp, are you new to the blog. I love your commentary…even though I disagree with this one = )
LikeLike
Hey Gov, I have a like/dislike relationship with this song. I go through periods where I can’t stand it, then I say “You know it isn’t bad”. I’m going through a “like” period with the song but I understand your feelings.
LikeLike
I don’t understand you guys (Gov & Landini) this song will always be GREAT! LOL
LikeLike
I got to agree with them. Sometimes I like it, sometimes I can’t stand it. It’s good, but it’s not The Supremes’ best. I’d give it a 6 out of 10 on a good day (and today wasn’t so hot for some people).
LikeLike
Bluh. Baby Love is, well, what can I say that hasn’t already been said a zillion times. There it is, and there it will stay. Never one of my favorites, and yet I do like it. I generally skip over it when listening to a CD that contains it.
One correction of a comment made above: At the end of the sax break, Flo says “Need you, need you,” not “Ooh ooh.” When performing this live, she usually sang “I need you, I want you.”
Oh, and this:
“it literally has a sound on it I haven’t heard anywhere else: that piano, that bass, the guitars, all chiming in together in a crotchet pulse on the beat, sounds new. Whether this is something the Funk Brothers cooked up themselves, or whether Holland-Dozier-Holland dreamed it up one night, Baby Love has the good sense to recognise its riveting new sound and open with it right away, four bars of beautiful foreboding – some of the prettiest tunesmithery we’ve yet seen, let’s not undersell it, it’s a lovely little melody – leaving the listener already off their guard. It never shows up again on its own throughout the song, perhaps because its work in wordlessly piquing your interest and breaking your heart is already done; to repeat it would maybe be to dilute it.”
Do you mean the intro? If so, it does show up again, sort of, at the end of the break under Flo’s “Need you…” and Mary’s “Yeah…” Not as forceful as the intro, but sort of a reprise of it.
Believe me, I’ve listened to this song enough times in my life; I’ve analyzed it backward and forward, and maybe that’s why I don’t listen to it much anymore. It is fascinating, I’ll grant you that, but then, so are all of their other first five Number One (Billboard U.S.) singles.
My elderly uncle, who’s a priest and hates 99.9…infinity% of pop music, and who only ever said he liked one pop song (Cherish by the Association) is familiar with Baby Love. And for that, I would give it an 8.
LikeLike
Correction to my comments above: You know this already, but the “Need you, yeah…” section is after the tjord verse, which is after the break. Come to think of it, the song is all verses with no real chorus, right?
LikeLike
Very good point! Structurally, there is no chorus in “Baby Love.” If you had only the instrumental track, you could sing the complete backing vocal (baby love, baby love/baby love ooo ooo baby love/don’t throw our love away, don’t throw our love away/baby, baby, baby, ooo…) from beginning to end, excluding the intro and the 2-bar break where the girls each break off into their individual ad libs.
Knowing this, I find it all the more amazing that this song ever made it to the public. Berry obviously heard that “something” that earned him the nickname “Golden Ears Gordy.”
Despite being touted as a quintessential Supremes song, it was never one of my favorites.
LikeLike
I am SO jealous of that picture sleeve. I don’t think i’ve ever seen it before. I’m pretty sure i had the Lp before i had the 45 so it would be a while before i saw a single release of “Baby Love”. This song almost became the sound of ’64 except we were absolutely overwhelmed by Gene Chandler’s 3 single releases that year, one of which was “Just Be True”.
LikeLike
I happened to look at the Billboard chart for this week in 1964 (50 years ago) and this was at the number one spot. It kept Leader Of The Pack, Last Kiss (oddly enough two death rock classics) and Have I The Right (the immortal Joe Meek production on the Honeycombs) at bay.
So let’s tip our collective hats to the no-hit Supremes (and H-D-H) for their second number one in a row. 50 years….hard to believe. Am I really that old? I remember it so well.
LikeLike
How can anyone rate this as 10/10 or absolute perfection? This to my mind this is one of Motown’s least worthwhile big hits from an artistic point of view. The lyrics are banal and could gave been written by a 10 year old and the melody although very catchy and instantly memorable is repeated so many times throughout the recording it gets a boring before the fade. I remember 30 odd years ago there was a TV program about Motown which featured interview snippets of various Motown writer/producers and I can recall Eddie Holland talking about ‘Baby Love’ and saying how trite he thought the lyrics were after completing them and said that he almost gave up on it and was never happy with the completed song. It’s a good job he didn’t give up on it because it was obviously one of HDH’s biggest earners. The only thing that redeems it for me is the magnificent arrangement and production that lift it up to something rather special. The completed record I would rate at 7/10, but the song alone only 4/10.
LikeLike
I agree with this assessment. I’d give it a “7”, as well. It’s nowhere near perfect, and I can think of several hundred Motown songs I like better than this. I’ve played my own copy perhaps twice, due to its being overplayed on the radio so much, and at parties back in 1964. Other records/tape and CD cuts of mine I’ve played literally thousands of times over the years. Perhaps after another 20 years of not hearing it, I’ll listen to it again?
LikeLike
“a musical synecdoche …”
In addition to the treasures you’ve unearthed in the Motown catalog, you’re introducing me to some great Merriam-Webster entries!
LikeLike
A brilliant, passionate, multi-layered review and many brilliant comments, both pro and con. I just have a few random thoughts to add to the discussion:
1. After hundreds of hearings, the part that now strikes me as the most brilliant is the vocal arrangement – especially when the chorus repeats “don’t throw our love away” twice while Diana sings a completely different line that only gets to “don’t throw our love away” afterwards. It’s jaw-droppingly great, and I would give even the early version at least a 9/10 on the strength of that alone. I actually find the early version hauntingly beautiful, although I concur that the final version is immeasurably better.
2. The intro on the early version is also stunningly great unto itself – although, again, the final version is in all ways vastly superior.
3. Diana Ross. Look … hundreds of singers have successful based their styles on Sinatra or Elvis (while I admit they’re iconic, I can barely stand either one, but …) … but Diana Ross is the only one who has come remotely close to capturing the essence of arguably the greatest singer of all time, Billie Holiday. Like Sinatra, Billie Holiday is instantly recognizable, but unlike Sinatra, she’s almost impossible to imitate. (Even Bill Murray does a decent Sinatra). And while she’s the only one to capture that indefinable “spark” of emotion, Diana Ross is in no way an imitation of Billie. She’s different from Lady Day in every measurable way … except … for that “thing” … that … I don’t know … the emotional vulnerability and expressiveness melded to the human voice – understated and yet overwhelming. Motown has more accomplished, more versatile singers, with more natural gifts, but none as iconic or original or unmistakable as Diana Ross.
4. Baby Love is a followup/answer to Where Did Our Love Go in a very unusual way (and in a far more interesting way than most Motown “followups”) – both use a single chord progression with unique harmonic hooks over and over with no bridge or verse/chorus relief. Baby Love is a bit longer, but it’s the same concept – and, while I’m always the first to whine about “no bridge!”, I don’t see that as a flaw here – in these case, as Prince would say, there’s joy in repetition.
5. Modulation. I wouldn’t dream of giving Baby Love less than 10/10, but if Baby Love were a 4/10, Baby I Need Your Loving would still be a 10/10. Baby Love’s cliché modulation (taking the aforementioned vamp up a half step) is a perfect demonstration of why Baby I Need Your Loving’s modulation is such a stroke of genius. I don’t mean to criticize the Baby Love modulation – it was a perfect place to use the cliché half-step rise and it’s executed perfectly as well, with a callback to the pause of the intro. The song wouldn’t be nearly as good without it, and since Baby Love uses the “joy in repetition/vamp” approach it doesn’t have the option of modulating the way the Temptations song does.
6. The HDH Shuffle – I’m still trying to wrap my head around this, but here it is again.
LikeLike
Do you have any idea why LA session guitarist Tommy Tedesco lists the Supremes “Baby Love” as a song that he played on? Was it re-recorded in LA at some time?
LikeLike
Pingback: "Baby Love" by The Supremes - Song Meanings and Facts