It Was 50 Years Ago Today: The Supremes Top the Charts With “Love is Here and Now You’re Gone”
March 21, 1967
“Love is Here and Now You’re Gone” by The Supremes
#1 on the Billboard Hot Rhythm and Blues Singles chart, March 11-24, 1967
When the Motown songwriting-production team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Eddie Holland gave the Supremes an unexpected blockbuster hit with “Where Did Our Love Go” in 1964, the label’s initial urge was the follow it up with more of the same. “Baby Love,” “Come See About Me,” “Stop! In the Name of Love,” and “Back in My Arms Again” are all based on the same basic rhythm, song structure, and lyrical themes as “Where Did Our Love Go,” to varying results.
But after that string of hits began to dry up with “Nothing but Heartaches” — the first of the bunch not to hit #1, much less make the Top 10 — the Supremes’ dream team realized they’d have to try something new.
With “I Hear a Symphony,” Holland-Dozier-Holland restored the Supremes to the top of the charts while adding sophistication with a layer of orchestral backing. The Supremes’ new formula became an un-formula: each single needed to be markedly different from the one before it.
This drive for novelty reflected the swift innovation of the best of mid-’60s pop music. “I Hear a Symphony” led to the brooding “My World is Empty Without You,” which was followed by the funky “Love is Like an Itching in My Heart,” the fleet gospel-pop of “You Can’t Hurry Love,” and the epic drama of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” modeled on Holland-Dozier-Holland’s agony-soaked records for the Four Tops (such as “Reach Out I’ll Be There” and “Bernadette”). Much as the Four Tops’ gothic drama diverged in increasingly baroque directions (think “7-Rooms of Gloom”), so too did the Supremes.
“Love is Here and Now You’re Gone” is built on juxtaposition: a conventional ballad with a full band and a strings-heavy arrangement, interrupted by despairing spoken-word fragments backed only by bass, harpsichord, and cries of “Look what you’ve done! Look what you’ve done!”
Spoken interjections were nothing new for Holland-Dozier-Holland – Levi Stubbs’s “just look over your shoulder!” in “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” for example – but they were usually incorporated into the body of the song. “Love is Here” instead splits these vocal interludes off into discrete sections. The dramatic lurches between them and the melodic parts of the song create a disconcerting effect, befitting the lyrics of a promised future abruptly wrenched away.
Apart from the characteristic fluid bassline, the restless pacing of which echoes the uneasy fluctuations of the song structure, the satiny production on “Love is Here” sounds oddly un-Motownlike. Even the label’s trademark stomping beat is muted to a soft thud.
As it turns out, “Love is Here” was largely recorded not at Hitsville USA with the Funk Brothers, but in Los Angeles with the Wrecking Crew, a harbinger of Motown’s permanent relocation to the West Coast a few years later. Perhaps this change of scenery explains why “Love is Here,” with its frothy strings and overripe soliloquies, seems less influenced by Detroit soul than by Hollywood melodrama.
As hammy as Diana Ross’s line readings may be (complete with a gasp in the first section), her actual singing on “Love is Here” is the subtlest and richest of any Supremes record yet. She no longer leans on the innate vulnerability of her fragile little-girl voice; instead, she adds careful shading to her phrasing and delivers some lines with surprising strength.
Ross begins the song in a crystal-clear, brisk tone, at a remove from the hurt-filled lyrics. Starting in the second verse, a slight cloudiness creeps into her timbre, as if she’s pushing through a catch in her voice.
In the coda, she clings to the phrase “oh my darling, now you’re gone,” afraid to let the words get away from her as easily as he did, her soft vibrato on the word “gone” trembling like unsuccessfully suppressed sobs.
While the subject matter of “Love is Here” is close to that of “Where Did Our Love Go” or “Baby Love,” Ross’s performance has progressed beyond the self-victimization of those earlier singles. Here, her hurt reaction isn’t defensive; it’s a means to force a confrontation (“look at my face!”) and assert her dignity. Ross’s revelatory performance is somewhat undermined, however, by the rather uninspired harmony arrangement given to Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson, a warning sign of changes to come.
Before 1967 was through, the Supremes would find themselves a completely different group from the one that started the year. After a couple more singles, Holland-Dozier-Holland would go on strike, eventually leaving Motown to found their own labels Invictus and Hot Wax Records.
Florence Ballard, an original member of the group (and frequent lead singer before Ross’s promotion), would be fired. The group wouldn’t even be called “The Supremes” anymore, but “Diana Ross & The Supremes” — a name change that pointed to the squeezing out of Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong (Ballard’s replacement), both of whom would only occasionally appear on the records bearing their group’s name.
Ross’s performance on “Love is Here” proved she had the talent to carry a record, but it also meant the beginning of the end of The Supremes as a distinct entity. In that sense, the biggest transformation in “Love is Here” wasn’t its song structure or production style, but the shifting group dynamic – firmly entrenching Diana as the star, and rendering the other Supremes anonymous and inessential.
A version of this essay previously appeared on No Hard Chords.
It Was 50 Years Ago Today examines a song, album, movie, or book that was #1 on the charts exactly half a century ago.
