Song of the Day 8/9: The Supremes, “Stop! In the Name of Love”

We’ll leave the Aussies for tomorrow — Lamont Dozier of Holland-Dozier-Holland fame died yesterday at age 81. He and his partners churned out an astounding 15 No. 1 singles for Motown, including 10 by the Supremes.

Dozier started out as a singer on the Anna label owned by Berry Gordy’s sisters. He hired Dozier as a writer for his new Motown label and paired him with a young composer, Brian Holland; they were soon joined by Holland’s older brother Eddie. Dozier described his role in the partnership thus: “Brian was all music, Eddie was all lyrics, and I was the idea man who bridged both.”

Dozier also contributed some of the trio’s most enduring lyrical hooks. “Sugar pie, honey bunch” was a term of endearment his grandfather used to say. “Bernadette” was the name of one of his numerous girlfriends. And when one of them attacked him after she caught him cheating, he burst out, “Stop! In the name of love!” “And as soon as I’d said it I heard a cash register in my head and laughed,” he told the Guardian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aax5EDQMOq4

He also told the Guardian the team’s formula in that 2001 interview. “All the songs started out as slow ballads, but when we were in the studio we’d pick up the tempo. The songs had to be fast because they were for teenagers — otherwise it would have been more like something for your parents. The emotion was still there, it was just under cover of the optimism that you got from the up-tempo beat.” In their six years at Motown Holland-Dozier-Holland landed 80 songs in the pop or R&B Top 40, usually both.

Holland-Dozier-Holland departed Motown over financial issues in 1967 and started their own record company, and while they had some hits (most notably Freda Payne’s “Band of Gold”) they fell far short of their previous success.

In the ’70s he returned to his performing career. He managed one Top 20 song, 1974’s “Trying to Hold On to My Woman.”

Another Dozier song from 1974, “Fish Ain’t Bitin’,” includes a rare political lyric:

And meanwhile in D.C.
Tricky Dick is tryna be slick
And the short end of the stick
Is all I’m gonna get it
Tricky Dick, please quit