Love Child (song)

For other songs, see Love child.
"Love Child"
side-A label
Side A of the Canadian single
Single by Diana Ross & the Supremes
from the album Love Child
B-side"Will This Be the Day"
ReleasedSeptember 30, 1968
RecordedHitsville U.S.A. (Studio A); September 17, September 19, and September 20, 1968
Genre
Length2:54 (album/single version )
3:14 (2003 remix)
LabelMotown
M 1135
Songwriter(s)R. Dean Taylor, Frank Wilson, Pam Sawyer, Deke Richards
Producer(s)The Clan
(R. Dean Taylor, Frank Wilson, Pam Sawyer, Deke Richards) and Henry Cosby
Diana Ross & the Supremes singles chronology
"Some Things You Never Get Used To"
(1968) 		"Love Child"
(1968) 		"I'm Gonna Make You Love Me"
(1968)
Love Child track listing
12 tracks
Side one
  1. "Love Child"
  2. "Keep an Eye"
  3. "How Long Has That Evening Train Been Gone"
  4. "Does Your Mama Know About Me"
  5. "Honey Bee (Keep on Stinging Me)"
  6. "Some Things You Never Get Used To"
Side two
  2. "He's My Sunny Boy"
  3. "You've Been So Wonderful to Me"
  4. "(Don't Break These) Chains of Love"
  5. "You Ain't Livin' Till You're Lovin'"
  6. "I'll Set You Free"
  7. "Can't Shake It Loose"
External media
"Love Child" (audio) on YouTube
"Love Child" (The Ed Sullivan Show, January 5, 1969) on YouTube

"Love Child" is a 1968 song released by the Motown label for Diana Ross & the Supremes. The second single and title track from their album Love Child, it became the Supremes' 11th number-one single in the United States, where it sold 500,000 copies in its first week and 2 million copies by year's end.[2]

The record took just three weeks to reach the Top Ten of Billboard's Hot 100 pop chart, which eventually it topped for two weeks (issues dated November 30 and December 7, 1968),[3][4] before being dethroned by an even bigger Motown single, Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine". "Love Child" also performed well on the soul chart — where it spent three weeks at no. 2 (behind Johnnie Taylor's "Who's Making Love") — and paved new ground for a major pop hit with its then-controversial subject matter of illegitimacy.[5] It is also the single that finally knocked the Beatles' "Hey Jude" off the top spot in the United States after its nine-week run. The Supremes debuted the dynamic and intense song on the season premiere of the CBS variety program The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday, September 29, 1968.[6][7] In Billboard's special 2015 chart of the Top 40 Biggest Girl Groups of All Time on the Billboard Hot 100, "Love Child" ranked highest among the Supremes' six entries.[8]

  1. ^ a b Sacher, Andrew (March 2, 2017). "30 essential psychedelic soul songs". BrooklynVegan. Retrieved September 28, 2024.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Million Selling Records was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ "Billboard Hot 100". Billboard. Vol. 80, no. 48. Nielsen Company. 1968. p. 90. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  4. ^ "Billboard Hot 100". Billboard. Vol. 80, no. 49. Nielsen Company. 1968. p. 60. Retrieved 10 May 2011.
  5. ^ "Show 50 - The Soul Reformation: Phase three, soul music at the summit. [Part 6] : UNT Digital Library". University of North Texas. Retrieved 2016-10-02.
  6. ^ Bronson, Fred: The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits, page 248. Billboard Books, 2003.
  7. ^ "Jefferson Airplane, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Red Skelton". The Ed Sullivan Show. Season 22. Episode 1. New York City. 29 September 1968. CBS. WCBS.
  8. ^ Lipshutz, Jason (2014-04-28). "Top 40 Girl Group Songs Of All Time". Billboard. Nielson Business Media, Inc. Retrieved 2015-02-28.