The Supremes – Where Did Our Love Go

The Motown songwriting team of Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland wrote this song, which was offered to another Motown group, The Marvelettes, who turned it down. Holland-Dozier-Holland had Marvelettes lead singer Gladys Horton in mind, but she sang in a lower key than The Supremes lead singer, Diana Ross. This forced Ross to sing in a lower, breathier style than she was used to.

This was the first #1 hit for The Supremes and their first song to chart in the UK. The Supremes had more US #1 hits in the ’60s than any other artist, but they weren’t instant hitmakers. After eight singles that hadn’t achieved much, The Supremes earned the nickname “No-Hit Supremes” at the Motown offices. The group was not impressed when they were offered a song to record that The Marvelettes, the top girl group at Motown at that point, had already rejected, but label head Berry Gordy insisted they record it. The Supremes thought “Where Did Our Love Go” was childish, and after recording it they didn’t like the way it turned out, little knowing it was going to be their first big hit.

Diana Ross sings the word “baby” 14 times in her lead vocal, but that word is repeated far often in the backing vocals. The backing vocals come in on the fifth line, “You came into my heart so tenderly,” and stay throughout the song, repeating the word “baby” a total of 54 times, for a total of 68 in the 2:32 run time. (During live performances, those first four lines seemed excruciating for Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard, who had to do some stilted choreography while Ross sang.)

“Where Did Our Love Go” was released as a single in 1964, and entered the Hot 100 at number 77. Six weeks later, while the Supremes were on tour as part of Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand Caravan of Stars”, the song made it to number one for two weeks, spending a total of nine weeks in the Billboard Top Ten. The girls began the tour at the bottom of the bill; by the conclusion of the tour, they were at the top. They performed the song on the NBC variety program, Hullabaloo! on Tuesday, January 26, 1965.

The song got a big boost from a writeup in the July 4, 1964 issue of the music industry trade magazine Billboard, which called it “music to hand-clap and foot-stomp to. Plenty of jump in this one.”

This got the attention of many radio stations, which added the song to their playlists. The following week, the song debuted on the Hot 100 at #77. On August 22, it hit #1, where it stayed for two weeks.

“Where Did Our Love Go” – Single by the Supremes from the album Where Did Our Love Go
Released 1964
Songwriters Holland–Dozier–Holland
Charted No.1 un US, No.1 in Canada, No.1 in New Zealand, No.3 in UK