About The Song
This is one of a handful of records which changed everything for Motown. Although the Supremes had scored their Top 20 pop chart breakthrough the previous year with “When The Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes,” it was not until “Where Did Our Love Go” marched to Number One in August 1964 that the company – make that Berry Gordy – recognized the group’s potential to attain wider appeal and greater popularity than any previous act on the roster. Their visual attractiveness, as well as the powerful sound which Holland/Dozier/Holland had begun to create, gave them an edge. It helped, of course, that Gordy was drawn to Diana Ross, in particular.
His determination, and that of his team, helped to fulfil the Supremes’ potential to the max, with the four singles following “Where Did Our Love Go” all claiming the top of the pop charts of trade magazines Billboard and Cash Box, the era’s most important indicators of sales and popularity. Over the next ten months, Ross, Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard became the first American group to score five consecutive Number Ones. Before the 1960s were over, the Supremes had collected twelve Number Ones, to say the least of their – and Motown’s – accomplishments.
The story behind the creation of “Where Did Our Love Go” has been frequently told: of how (it’s said) the song was first intended for the Marvelettes, and of how the Supremes didn’t much like it upon first hearing. A further scenario has Eddie Holland suggesting that Mary Wilson should handle the lead vocals, but his brother Brian and Lamont Dozier preferred Diana. Ultimately, nothing matters beyond how the record performed and what it began for the three young women and the Detroit company.
How did their world change? “It changed,” Mary Wilson told Billboard’s Fred Bronson on the 50th anniversary of “Where Did Our Love Go” reaching Number One on the magazine’s Hot 100 chart, “because at a time when it was an impossible dream for black people, we accomplished something. It was a personal accomplishment, but also an accomplishment for others. We started touring the world and every country we went to, we were introduced as ‘Motown’s Supremes.’ We helped put Motown on the map.”