Songfacts®:

• "Ball Of Confusion" was one of the many psychedelic soul records Norman Whitfield wrote and produced for the Temptations between the late '60 and early '70s. The song tries to make sense of the chaos and disorder pervading the times.
• Lyrically, the song attacked the Vietnam War, Nixon's government, and drug addiction, making it one of the few protest records that came from Motown.
• Bob Babbitt of the Motown house band The Funk Brothers recalled to Mojo magazine February 2009 the recording of this track: "Norman Whitfield gave the call to me the night before (the session). So I got to the studio the next day, there were a whole load of guys in there - Uriel Jones, Pistol Allen, Jack Ashford, Eddie Bongo, Earl Van Dyke on clavinet, Johnny Griffith on organ, Joe Messina, Dennis Coffey.
  
  There was no song, just some musical ideas, some chord patterns, and part of a bassline he played us. Norman knew what he wanted though, that it was going to be funky. He'd been listening to a lot of Hendrix, Sly & the Family Stone, that's the sound he wanted to make the Motown sound.
  
  Putting it together was simple, we just did that one song in the three-hour session and we had enough time left over to eat some BLT sandwiches. We didn't know it was going to be political, because the lyrics weren't written when the rhythm track was recorded.
  
  I heard the song four days later. It was a Saturday morning, I was running errands and it came on the automobile radio. They got the songs out quick in those days, especially in Detroit."
• Dennis Coffey used a Vox Tone Bender pedal and an Echoplex effect unit on his guitar to get psychedelic delay. Coffey also used the Echoplex on "In The Rain" by The Dramatics, where it is more pronounced.
• This was one of number of classic R&B and gospel songs performed by Whoopi Goldberg and her choir in the 1993 movie, Sister Act 2 Back in the Habit.
• A number of artists have covered this tune, including The Neville Brothers, Tina Turner, Duran Duran and Anthrax. Tina Turner's version was included on the 1982 LP Music of Quality And Distinction Volume One, a tribute album by the B.E.F, a production team formed by former Human League members Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh who later became Heaven 17 (with lead singer Glenn Gregory). The album involved other artists covering classic songs, mainly done in their electro-pop style with synthesizers and LinnDrums. Martyn Ware recalled to us the moment where Tina and her manager Rodger Davis first walked into the studio. "She said, 'Martyn, nice to meet you. Where is the band?' And I pointed at the Fairlight and I said, 'It's there.' Of course, this was the early days of that stuff. They were blown away, really."
  
  Tina Turner's recording of the track opened the album and was also issued as a single reaching the Top 5 in Norway. It proved to be an important song in Turner's career as it led to Capitol Records signing her and her next single, a Martyn Ware produced cover of Al Green's "Let's Stay Together," became a surprise hit on both sides of the Atlantic.
• On May 17, 1985, the English rock band Love And Rockets recorded a "Ball Of Confusion" remake as their first single. It was released standalone, but in 2000 they included it on the reissue of their 1985 debut album, Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven.