THE SUPREMES - STOP! IN THE NAME OF LOVE / BACK IN MY ARMS AGAIN / I HEAR A SYMPHONY 

STOP! IN THE NAME OF LOVE

Released : February 8, 1965

Charted:  UK: #7    US: #1 (2 weeks)

This was written by the Motown songwriting team Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland (Holland/Dozier/Holland). Dozier got the idea for the title after an argument with his girlfriend (she caught him cheating). In the heat of battle, he said, "Baby, please stop. In the name of love - before you break my heart."  He was trying to diffuse the situation, but it didn't help - she was still going to break up with him. So, he asked her to "think it over." Dozier knew these lines were a bit corny, but thought they would fit well into a song. He was right: "Stop! In the Name of Love" became a huge hit, and when it did, the girl came back to him.

Lamont Dozier added some detail to the story of how he came up with the title. He was cheating on his girlfriend and having a tryst at a "no-tell motel" when the girlfriend got word and started banging on the door around 2 a.m. Dozier sent his paramour out the bathroom window and opened the door. With his girlfriend "screaming and carrying on," Dozier tried to spin a story that he was working late at the studio and got the motel room because he was tired, but it didn't fly. That's when he said, "Stop, in the name of love."  The next day he went to the studio where Brian Holland was playing a slow melody. Dozier had him speed it up, and using his line from the night before as the title, they started putting the song together.

"Stop! In the Name of Love" is a powerful plea for loyalty and honesty in a relationship. A girl is aware of her partner's infidelity and has tried to wait patiently for him to stop, but she cannot bear the thought of losing him forever. She asks him to think it over before leaving her and running to his other lover's arms. The chorus serves as a warning to her partner, urging him to reconsider the consequences of his actions before causing any more pain. The woman is hurt and heartbroken, but she still harbors deep affection for her partner and hopes that he will choose to stay with her instead of risking everything for someone else.

The famous "talk to the hand" choreography the group performed for this song was thought up in a hurry. Soon after it was recorded, The Supremes joined other Motown acts on a tour of Europe, where the first gig was a one-hour TV special called The Sound of Motown, hosted by Dusty Springfield. When The Temptations saw The Supremes rehearsing the song, group member Paul Williams suggested some choreography and came up with the saucy gestures they used on the show and in subsequent performances.

Record World said "These girls can't be stopped. And so they have another one that is on their way to the top spot. Diana, Florence and Marie have the knack and so does their home base, Motown Records.”

BACK IN MY ARMS AGAIN

Released : April 15, 1965

Charted:  UK: #40    US: #1 (1 week) 

This was The Supremes' fifth consecutive #1 hit in the US, all five were written by the Motown team of Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland, known collectively as Holland-Dozier-Holland. "Back In My Arms Again" finds lead singer Diana Ross reunited with her man and determined to keep him, even if it means ignoring her friends' pleas to leave him.

Supremes Mary Wilson and Florence Ballard get a mention in the third verse, starring as two of the friends hectoring Ross to dump her man:

How can Mary tell me what to do

When she lost her love so true?

And Flo, she don't know

'Cause the boy she loves is a romeo

In real life, their friendship was strained around this time, with Wilson and Ballard frustrated because Ross had become the focal point of the group. They were happy to get their names mentioned though.

I HEAR A SYMPHONY

Released : October 6, 1965

Charted:  UK: #39    US: #1 (2 weeks)

In this song, The Supremes are so smitten that every time the guy comes around, it's like he has his own sweet theme music. Lamont Dozier, who wrote and produced the song with his partners Eddie and Brian Holland, told the story: "I used to go to the movies and I would see that the main stars had their own theme songs. When they appeared on the screen, you would hear this melody behind them - they had their own little melody each time they appeared in the movie. So the lyrics, 'Whenever you are near, I hear a symphony,' it was about this guy. Whenever he came around, in her mind she got this feeling and she heard this melody. He brought out the music in her."

Brian Holland, who wrote the song with his brother Eddie and their songwriting partner Lamont Dozier, had an affair with Diana Ross in the early '60s. It was a very emotional time for him, and a lot of those feelings came out in this song. In the book The Supremes: A Saga of Motown Dreams, Success and Betrayal, he revealed that the song never got to him until the '80s, when he was driving one day and the song came on the radio. "I hadn't had any emotional reaction to it before that. It took 25 years for it to sink in how good that song is," he said. "Things were happening in our lives by then, Eddie's and mine, that began to creep into the songs. Those songs were supposed to be about simple things. And at the beginning, they were. It was 'baby this, baby that.' But when I hear something like 'Symphony,' man, there ain't nothing simple about it."

Most of the Supremes previous hits had an element of heartbreak in the lyrics, but "Back in My Arms Again” and "I Hear A Symphony" are about happiness and the ecstasy of pure, true love.