"I'm Livin' in Shame" | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Single by Diana Ross & the Supremes | ||||
from the album Let the Sunshine In | ||||
B-side | "I'm So Glad I Got Somebody (Like You Around)" | |||
Released | January 6, 1969 | |||
Genre | Psychedelic pop, psychedelic soul | |||
Length | 2:57 | |||
Label | Motown M 1139 | |||
Songwriter(s) | Frank Wilson, Pam Sawyer, R. Dean Taylor, Deke Richards | |||
Producer(s) | The Clan (R. Dean Taylor, Frank Wilson, Pam Sawyer, Deke Richards) | |||
Diana Ross & the Supremes singles chronology | ||||
|
"I'm Livin' in Shame" is a 1969 song released for Diana Ross & the Supremes on the Motown label. The sequel to the Supremes' number-one hit, "Love Child," the song peaked in the top ten on the US Billboard Hot 100 pop chart at #10 and the top 20 in the UK at #14 in April and May 1969. [1] [2]
Inspired by the plot of Douglas Sirk's 1959 film Imitation of Life , [3] The Clan composed "I'm Livin' in Shame" as a sequel to the Supremes' number-one hit single, "Love Child." The song explores the quest of the 'love child' to shun both her impoverished childhood and her mother, and pass herself off to her friends and new husband as the daughter of a rich family. The woman's mother ends up dying without ever seeing her daughter as an adult, or ever meeting her two-year-old grandson, to the child's regret and chagrin.
The girl group debuted the single live on the Sunday, January 5, 1969 episode of the popular CBS variety program, The Ed Sullivan Show , [4] peaking at number 10 on the American pop chart and at 14 on the UK singles chart in late winter and early spring of 1969. The recorded release is without the backing vocals of Mary Wilson or Cindy Birdsong (as with many singles released under this group's billing, session singers The Andantes appear on the record).
Cash Box described it as a "spectacular performance and another standout song" that continues the story of the Supremes earlier single "Love Child." [5]
Chart (1969) | Peak position |
---|---|
Australia ( Go-Set ) [6] | 28 |
Australia (Kent Music Report) [7] | 33 |
Canada Top Singles ( RPM ) [8] | 12 |
Iceland (Íslenski Listinn) [9] | 27 |
Ireland (IRMA) [10] | 6 |
Netherlands (Dutch Top 40 Tipparade) [11] | 3 |
UK Singles (OCC) [12] | 14 |
UK R&B ( Record Mirror ) [13] | 9 |
US Billboard Hot 100 [14] | 10 |
US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs ( Billboard ) [15] | 8 |
US Cashbox Top 100 [16] | 8 |
US Cashbox R&B [17] | 8 |
US Record World 100 Top Pops [18] | 8 |
US Record World Top 50 R&B [19] | 7 |
"Someday We'll Be Together" is a song written by Johnny Bristol, Jackey Beavers, and Harvey Fuqua. It was the last of twelve American number-one pop singles for Diana Ross & the Supremes on the Motown label. Although it was released as the final Supremes song featuring Diana Ross, who left the group for a solo career in January 1970, it was recorded as Ross' first solo single and Supremes members Mary Wilson and Cindy Birdsong do not sing on the recording. Both appear on the B-side, "He's My Sunny Boy".
"Stop! In the Name of Love" is a 1965 song recorded by the Supremes for the Motown label.
"Reflections" is a 1967 song recorded by American soul music group The Supremes for the Motown label. The single release was the first Supremes record credited to "Diana Ross and the Supremes", and the song was one of the last Motown hits to be written and produced by Holland–Dozier–Holland before they left the label.
"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.
"I Hear a Symphony" is a 1965 song recorded by the Supremes for the Motown label.
American girl group The Supremes has released 29 studio albums, four live albums, two soundtrack albums, 32 compilation albums, four box sets, 66 singles and three promotional singles. The Supremes are the most successful American group of all time, and the 26th greatest artist of all time on the US Billboard charts; with 12 number-one songs on the Billboard Hot 100 and three number-one albums on the Billboard 200. The Supremes were the first artist to accumulate five consecutive number-one singles on the US Hot 100 and the first female group to top the Billboard 200 albums chart with The Supremes A' Go-Go (1966). In 2017, Billboard ranked The Supremes as the number-one girl group of all time, publishing, 'although there have been many girl group smashes in the decades since the Supremes ruled the Billboard charts, no collective has yet to challenge their, for lack of a better word, supremacy.' In 2019, the UK Official Charts Company placed 7 Supremes songs—"You Can't Hurry Love" (16), "Baby Love" (23), "Stop! In the Name of Love" (56), "Where Did Our Love Go?" (59), "You Keep Me Hangin' On" (78), "Come See About Me" (94) and "Stoned Love" (99)—on The Official Top 100 Motown songs of the Millennium chart, which ranks Motown releases by their all-time UK downloads and streams.
"I'm Gonna Make You Love Me" is a soul song most popularly released as a joint single performed by Diana Ross & the Supremes and the Temptations for the Motown label. This version peaked for two weeks at No. 2 on the Hot 100 in the United States, selling 900,000 copies in its first two weeks, and at No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart in January 1969.
"Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)" is the debut solo single of singer Diana Ross, released in April 1970 as the first single from her solo self-titled debut 1970 album by Motown Records.
"Up the Ladder to the Roof" is a 1970 hit single recorded first by The Supremes for the Motown label. It was the first Supremes single to feature new lead singer Jean Terrell in place of Diana Ross, who officially left the group for a solo career two weeks before the recording of this song in January 1970. This song also marks a number of other firsts: it is the first Supremes single since "The Happening" in 1967 to be released under the name "The Supremes" instead of "Diana Ross & The Supremes", the first Supremes single solely produced by Norman Whitfield associate Frank Wilson, and the first Supremes single to make the United Kingdom Top 10 since "Reflections" in 1967.
"I Second That Emotion" is a 1967 song written by Smokey Robinson and Al Cleveland. First charting as a hit for Smokey Robinson and the Miracles on the Tamla/Motown label in 1967, "I Second That Emotion" was later a hit single for the group duet Diana Ross & the Supremes and the Temptations, also on the Motown label.
"Love Is Here and Now You're Gone" is a 1967 song recorded by the Supremes for the Motown label.
"Floy Joy" is a song written by Smokey Robinson and released as a single in December 1971 by popular Motown female singing group The Supremes.
"Forever Came Today" is a 1968 song written and produced by the Motown collective of Holland–Dozier–Holland, and was first made into a hit as a single for Diana Ross & the Supremes in early 1968. A disco version of the song was released as a single seven years later by Motown group the Jackson 5.
"In and Out of Love" is a 1967 song recorded by The Supremes for the Motown label. It was the second single issued with the group's new billing of Diana Ross & the Supremes, the penultimate Supremes single written and produced by Motown production team Holland–Dozier–Holland, and the last single to feature the vocals of original member Florence Ballard.
"I'm Gonna Let My Heart Do the Walking" is a disco-styled soul single composed by the Holland brothers Eddie and Brian, members of the former Holland–Dozier–Holland team and was released as a single by Motown vocal group The Supremes in 1976 on the Motown label. It was the first single since "Your Heart Belongs to Me" in 1962 to feature four Supremes. It is also notable for being the last top forty single the group would score before they disbanded in 1977.
"The Composer" is a 1969 song released for Diana Ross & the Supremes by the Motown label.
"I'll Try Something New" is a song written by Smokey Robinson and originally released in 1962 by The Miracles on Motown Records' Tamla subsidiary label. Their version was a Billboard Top 40 hit, peaking at #39, and just missed the Top 10 of its R&B chart, peaking at #11. The song was released later as a joint single by Diana Ross & the Supremes and The Temptations, also becoming a charting version on the Billboard 100 pop singles chart, peaking for two weeks in April 1969 at number 25.
"Touch" is a soft ballad written by Pamela Sawyer and Frank Wilson, who also produced it as a single for Motown recording group The Supremes, who issued it as a single in 1971.
"Some Things You Never Get Used To" is a song released in 1968 by Diana Ross & the Supremes on the Motown label. The single stalled for three weeks at number 30 on the U.S. Billboard pop chart in July 1968. It became the lowest-charting Supremes single since 1963 and became the catalyst for Berry Gordy to revamp songwriting for The Supremes since the loss of Motown's premier production team Holland–Dozier–Holland, which Gordy had assigned as the group's sole producers after the success of "When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes."
"No Matter What Sign You Are" is a song released for Diana Ross & the Supremes by the Motown label.