luxken27 | 100 Songs That Have Moved Me | Song #007: "Where Did Our Love Go" (1964)

Title: "Where Did Our Love Go"
Artist: The Supremes
Composers: Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, Edward Holland, Jr
Producers: Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier
Release Date: June 17, 1964
Peak Chart Position: #1 (Hot 100)
Album: Where Did Our Love Go (1964)

Rolling Stone metadata:

Rank: #475

Blurb: After eight flop singles, the trio were known as the "No-Hit Supremes." The Marvelettes — Motown's top girl group at that point — passed on this song, and the Supremes didn't like their own recording. Until it hit Number One, that is. That foot-stomping beat is actually two boards banged together. (Source)

Words from the artist:

Holland–Dozier–Holland (H-D-H) had originally composed the song and prepared the instrumental track for The Marvelettes to record it. The Marvelettes rejected the song, thinking it childish, and H–D–H offered it to the Supremes, who by early 1964 had only one top-forty hit, "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes," and eight failed singles. Although the Supremes were apprehensive at first about the song, they decided that they really didn't have a choice in the matter.

Upon learning the Supremes had chosen to record "Where Did Our Love Go", the Marvelettes warned the girls to stand up for themselves and not just take anything H–D–H would give them. As a result, when the song was recorded on April 8, 1964, there was a bit of animosity on the part of the Supremes towards singing the song. Lamont Dozier was forced at one point to redo the arrangement of the background vocals, replacing the original, more complex backing with simple repetitions of the word "baby."

One of the most famous aspects of "Where Did Our Love Go" was its rhythm section, consisting primarily of foot stomps, which were inspired by The Four Seasons early hits. The sound effect was performed by an Italian-American teenager named Mike Valvano, who stomped down upon two wooden boards suspended by strings, to create the aural illusion of a group of foot-stompers. Hand claps were overdubbed for the 45 RPM single mix of the song.

Since the lead vocal was originally written to be sung by the Marvelettes' lead singer Gladys Horton, it was arranged in lower key than the Supremes' lead singer Diana Ross' natural register. Lyricist Eddie Holland wanted Supreme Mary Wilson to sing the lead, feeling that her dusky voice suited the song better, but by this time Motown chief Berry Gordy had appointed Ross as the trio's sole lead singer. The resulting vocal track had a sensual appeal not present in Ross' earlier songs, and she elatedly rushed to Gordy's office, and dragged him to the basement studio at Hitsville U.S.A. to hear it. Upon hearing the finished song, Gordy remarked that the song had potential, possibly enough to make it to the top ten. (Source)

How this song moves me:

I suppose it's a bit ironic (or maybe serendipitous?) that I'm reading I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution right now - and this song is the next one to pop up on my personal faves of the Greatest Songs of All Time list. In a lot of ways, Motown was a revolution in and of itself - with this group at the heart of its success.

I was quite surprised when I learned that this was their first #1 hit, after a string of failures. These days, its hard not to trip over a Supremes classic on the oldies stations, so its hard to imagine that this group ever struggled to find its toehold on the American imagination. And yet, here it is - a song so laden with sexual innuendo it sounds scandalous to these modern ears, LOL. Don't we tend to view pre-Summer of Love rock as fairly innocent stuff? Not even Elvis had risque songs to go with those famously gyrating hips :P

But, getting back to this song and how it's personally moved me ~ it was one of the ones that pushed me into writing my current KI fic Love Letters. It's pretty much the epitome of the feeling I wanted to capture early in the story - of love, of loss, of innocuous betrayal brought on by both. The plaintive pleas of the lyrics:

Don’t you want me no more?
Where did our love go?
And all your promises of love forever more?

work just as well when the frustration is due to a known absence, like one half of the pairing caught up in a whirlwind tour.

What ultimately decided the placement of this song on the Love Letters playlist was its opening salvo:

Baby, baby
Baby, don’t leave me
Ooh, please don’t leave me
All by myself

I’ve got this burning, burning, yearning
Feeling inside me
Ooh, deep inside me
And it hurts so bad

...which I interpreted literally, and felt like the perfect way to transition into a more sexually aggressive tone to Stacy's letters. She misses not only her boyfriend's immediate presence, but all of those physical aspects of their relationship. To me, it's sort of like marrying the romantic ideal of being in love with the reality of the situation, and the way that sex can strengthen those bonds.

I love music that gets under the skin, and evokes visceral imagery and reaction ♥

100 Songs That Have Moved Me | Song #007: "Where Did Our Love Go" (1964)

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