Songfacts®:

• 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.
  
  Lamont Dozier explained in the book Chicken Soup For the Soul: The Story Behind The Song: "I originally cut this track with the Marvelettes in mind. In fact, I cut it in Gladys Horton's key, the lead singer, which was much lower than Diana Ross'. At that time, at Motown, the policy was that the songwriters had to pay for the tracks we cut if it didn't get recorded by one of their artists. It never entered my mind that the Marvelettes wouldn't like the song. I had the chorus and went to the office to talk with Gladys and played it for her. She said, 'Oh, honey, we don't do stuff like that. And it's the worst thing I ever heard.' She was adamant about it. I was shocked.
  
  I knew I was in deep trouble if I didn't hurry and get someone to do the song because I wasn't about to pay for the track. I went through the Motown artist roster and went all the way to the bottom of the list and there were the Supremes, better known in those days as the 'no hit Supremes.' I told them it was tailor made for them, knowing that they had nothing going on at the time and needed a song. Much to my surprise, they said no. Gladys (Horton of the Marvelettes) told them I was looking for someone to record it. I wasn't giving up. Brian (Holland), Eddie (Holland) and I finally persuaded them to do it, convincing them that it was their saving grace and they couldn't refuse it. We had already had Top 40 hits with Martha & the Vandellas but they hadn't had recordings of any significance yet.
  
  They were so annoyed that they agreed to do it that, in the studio, they had a really bad attitude. Diana (Ross) said it was in the wrong key, that it was too low. (Of course it was - I wrote it in Gladys' key.) Since the track was already cut, she had to sing it in that key and she'd never sung that low before. It turned out that her bad attitude and the low key were exactly what the song needed! I'd worked out intricate background vocals but the girls refused to learn them. Finally I said, 'Just sing 'Baby, baby, baby'.' It worked to their advantage and worked perfectly.
  
  They didn't necessarily agree. Diana and I were throwing obscenities back and forth and she went running to Berry (Gordy, Jr.) and told him I said something off-color about him. He came down to the studio to see what was wrong and while he was there, he asked to hear the song. He thought it was really good, but said that he didn't know if it was a hit, but that he thought it would be Top 10.
  
  The song was released and flew up the charts to #1. From then on, one hit followed another. It was the first of 13 consecutive #1s we did on the Supremes. The next time the Hollands and I saw the girls was at the airport. They were getting off a plane with their Yorkshire terriers, in mink stoles. We started laughing. It was so funny to see them turn into stars overnight."
• 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.
• The Motown studios, known as "Hitsville USA," had high ceilings and mahogany wood floors which enhanced the echoes, foot stomps and finger snaps that were part of many of the tunes recorded there. All foot stomps at Hitsville, including those heard on this song, were genuine, and most of the time were done with plywood sheets laying over the floor and picked up with two to three mics, including mics sitting in the rear of the echo chamber. >>>

  Suggestion credit:
  Colby - Arthur, IL
• 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.)
  
  That's a lot of babys, especially since that word isn't in the title. The Holland-Dozier-Holland team took note - the next song they wrote for The Supremes was "Baby Love," another #1 hit.
• According to Lamont Dozier, one of his breakups inspired the lyric. He split from a girl who "wanted more from me than a casual fling," and he wasn't ready to make the commitment.
  
  Playing on the piano, he found the phrase "where did our love go." Said Dozier: "It hit me thinking about how something so strong as love could be so fragile and then go poof, just like that. It's like, where did our love go?" (quotes from Mark Ribowsky's book The Supremes)
• The recording session for this song took place on April 8, 1964. Musicians included Johnny Griffiths on piano, James Jamerson on bass, Benny Benjamin on drums, and a sax solo from Mike Terry. Some sources claim Jack Ashford played vibraphone. The song was recorded on three tracks: one for rhythm, another for horns, and a third for vocals.
• As Motown heartbreak songs go, this one packs some heat. Diana Ross is on fire with her burning love, but it's not a healthy relationship - it "stings like a bee." She's ready to surrender to this guy to keep him from leaving. Anything to keep that feeling.
• The Supremes hated the song but were in no position at that time to turn it down, so they had to record it. Mary Wilson recalled to Billboard magazine in a 2014 interview: "We were a little pissed. It wasn't like a Martha & the Vandellas song. We told Holland-Dozier-Holland to bring on the hits. If we didn't get a hit, our parents were going to make us go to college."
  
  "I went to Eddie and I cried," she continued. "I told him, 'You don't understand, we've got to get a hit record right now.' He said, 'Don't worry, trust us, this is going to be a smash.'"
  
  "One of the things we didn't like about it was that Flo and I just had to sing, 'Baby, baby.' We were used to doing intricate harmonic patterns but on this song we didn't do anything."
• This song was released in June 1964, the same month The Supremes embarked on Dick Clark's Summer Caravan of Stars tour at the bottom of a bill that included Gene Pitney, The Coasters, The Shirelles and The Crystals. During that tour, "Where Did Our Love Go" became climbing the charts, giving the group some status. When Clark launched his Winter tour in November, The Supremes were at the top of the bill.
• 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. "Baby Love" reached the top spot on October 31, followed by "Come See About Me" on December 19.
• At the invitation of Berry Gordy, Adam Ant performed this in 1983 on the Motown 25th Anniversary TV special - the same show where Michael Jackson did his most famous Moonwalk. Ant was a huge star in England, but little known in the US, especially among the Motown crowd. Midway through the performance, Diana Ross appeared on stage, giving her approval to the British Punk rocker who was perplexing the audience. According to Ant, Michael Jackson called him after the show, asking where he got his costumes.
• Eddie Holland told Mojo magazine that he wanted Diana Ross to sing the song "lost and innocent." However, she wanted to do the complete opposite. As Ross was in a bad mood, "she deliberately sang it without expression. Deadpan."
  
  After she'd laid down her vocals, Ross said, sarcastically, "Is that what you want?" It was exactly what Holland was looking for.