‘You Can’t Hurry Love’: When Motown nailed the song of the summer in 1966
Pop music has always been rather formulaic, but never before had those formulas been so stringently regimented, or reliably successful, as in the case of Motown Records. For the vast majority of the 1960s, Berry Gordy’s label commanded the pop charts with unparalleled poise, and that included nailing the elusive ‘song of the summer’ on multiple occasions.
Summer has always been the time of the year when pop thrives the most, with the outside atmosphere more suitable for the optimistic, bubblegum nature of most mainstream pop hits. Motown realised that fact rather earlier on in its existence, with Gordy’s music industry prowess already proving itself to be far beyond his years.
What’s more, their upbeat, four-on-the-floor, soulful pop anthems were naturally suited to the sunshine months, particularly as far as The Supremes were concerned.
Initially a failed act with little direction, forced to be content with providing backing vocals or, even worse, hand claps for a variety of more successful artists on Motown, The Supremes’ career changed with the introduction of Holland-Dozier-Holland. That iconic songwriting trio provided The Supremes with their very first major hit, in ‘When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes’, and their inaugural number-one arrived shortly thereafter.
Within a few short months of hitting their stride, The Supremes had ascended to the upper echelon of Motown royalty, becoming the label’s flagship act, for whom every release seemed to shoot to the top of the pop charts. A particular highlight of those glory years arrived in 1966 – Motown’s indisputable golden age – when that infallible trio unleashed yet another Holland-Dozier-Holland classic, ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’.
Upbeat, optimistic, and with the kind of universal lyrics that had long since been a Motown staple, that fateful single was tailor-made to be the perfect song for the summer of 1966, and it certainly achieved that aim. Reaching the top of the US singles charts, the R&B charts, and breaching the top ten in the UK charts thousands of miles away, the song’s success peaked in the summer months of that transformative year, the final summer before the infamous ‘summer of love’ that was to follow.
For Motown, the single was a roaring success, of course, but it wasn’t unexpected. The Supremes and Holland-Dozier-Holland had struck upon a formula that worked time and time again, until the songwriting trio eventually left Motown under a cloud of royalty disputes.
‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ became one of the band’s signature tracks, but it wasn’t long before they moved swiftly on to the next hit, the similarly iconic ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’. As far as the group were concerned, there wasn’t much time to wallow in that success; they were always looking ahead.
Even today, pop stars are still attempting to perfect the ‘summer anthem’ idea, but Motown had it all tied up back in the 1960s. They might not have stopped the driving cogs of Hitsville USA to appreciate it at the time, but with ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’, the label had changed the landscape of pop music forevermore, and the influence of that single lasted long after the winter months had come and gone.
