Songfacts®:

• Smokey Robinson captures a vibe on "Cruisin'," a sultry slow jam with the promise of an intimate getaway. It evokes an easygoing road trip, but a closer listen makes it clear the song takes place in the bedroom. As Smokey sings, "Cruisin' is made for love."
  
  When asked about the meaning, he deflected. "You'd be surprised by how many people speculate on what Cruisin' means," he told The Guardian. "'Cruisin'' is a word that I leave up to the listener. When you're with the person you're with, and you feel you're cruisin', it's whatever you want it to be."
• Smokey Robinson was an architect of the Motown sound, landing hits like "The Tracks Of My Tears" and "Going To A Go-Go" in the '60s with his group The Miracles. He also wrote Motown classics for The Tempations like "My Girl" by "The Way You Do The Things You Do."
  
  Smokey was still recording for Motown when he wrote "Cruisin'" with his guitarist Marv Tarplin, who was also in The Miracles. Released in 1979, it was his biggest hit of that decade. In 1981 he had another big hit with "Being With You."
• The Young Rascals had a #1 hit in 1967 called "Groovin'" that influenced this song. Marv Tarplin had the music written, but Robinson struggled to find the right words. He told the story to The Guardian: "It took me five years to write. I had the music, and that music is so intimate and sensual, but I couldn't get the words. Then one day I got: 'You're gonna fly away and I'm glad you're coming my way.' And then I was driving my car down Sunset Boulevard and I heard that song by the Rascals, 'Groovin' and I thought, 'That's it! Grooving.' But then, no, it wasn't intimate enough, it wasn't sensual enough for the music, and that's when I thought of 'cruisin.'"
• Notable covers include a 1995 one by soul singer D'Angelo, which peaked at #53 in the US, and a version by Gwyneth Paltrow and Huey Lewis for the 2000 movie Duets, which topped the charts in Australia.
• "Cruisin'" shows up in the 1999 movie Any Given Sunday. It's also in the 2008 The Simpsons episode "The DeBarted."
• "Cruisin'" was used in a 2025 Häagen-Dazs Super Bowl commercial titled "Not So Fast, Not So Furious," where Michelle Rodriguez and Vin Diesel slow things down to enjoy an ice cream treat as the song plays. Ludacris, another star of the Fast & Furious franchise, pulls up beside them to find out what's going on.