You Can't Hurry Love

History

Overview

The song "You Can't Hurry Love", a memory of a mother's words ("My mama said 'you can't hurry love/No you just have to wait) telling her daughter that with patience she will find that special someone one day, was inspired by and partially based upon "(You Can't Hurry God) He's Right on Time" ("You can't hurry God/you just have to wait/Trust and give him time/no matter how long it takes"), a 1950s gospel song written by Dorothy Love Coates of the Original Gospel Harmonettes.

Written and produced by Motown's main production team, Holland–Dozier–Holland, "You Can't Hurry Love" is one of the signature Supremes songs, and also one of Motown's signature releases. Billboard described the single as "the group's most exciting side to date" with "top vocal" and "exceptional instrumental backing." Cash Box said that it is a "pulsating pop-r&b rhythmic ode which contends that romance is a slow-developing game of give-and-take." Record World called it "a wonderful and happy sounding tune, chirped by the Supremes, with bells and banjos."

The single was the Supremes' seventh number-one hit, topping the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for two weeks, from September 4 to September 17, 1966, and reaching number one on the soul chart for two weeks. The group performed the song on the CBS variety program The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday, September 25, 1966.

"You Can't Hurry Love" was the second single from the Supremes' album The Supremes A' Go-Go. It reached the number one position on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart in the United States, and number three in the United Kingdom. The Supremes' version of the song is honored by inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's permanent collection of 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

The Supremes also released a version sung in Italian: "L'amore verrà" ("Love Will Come").

Personnel

• Lead vocals by Diana Ross
• Background vocals by Mary Wilson and Marlene Barrow
• Instrumentation by the Funk Brothers
  • Earl Van Dyke – piano
  • Robert White – guitar
  • James Jamerson – bass guitar
  • Benny Benjamin – drums
  • Jack Ashford – tambourine
• Written by Holland-Dozier-Holland

Chart performance

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Phil Collins version

| B-side = * "Do You Know, Do You Care?" (North America)

• "I Cannot Believe It's True" (international) 19 November 1982 (UK)
• Blue-eyed soul
• R&B
• Atlantic (international)
• Hugh Padgham

Phil Collins' cover of the song was released in October 1982 as a single from his second solo album, Hello, I Must Be Going!. Collins' version became his first number one on the UK singles chart for two weeks in January 1983, peaking two positions higher than the original song did in the country, and reached number 10 in the United States (his first top 10 single in the US). The single was certified gold in the UK. The orchestral strings on this track were recorded in Studio 1 at CBS Recording Studios, London W1 by recording engineer Mike Ross-Trevor (assisted by Richard Hollywood) on the evening of June 24, 1982.

Collins said: "The idea of doing 'Can't Hurry Love' was to see if Hugh Padgham and I could duplicate that Sixties sound. It's very difficult today because most recording facilities are so much more sophisticated than they were back then. It's therefore hard to make the drums sound as rough as they did on the original. That's what we were going after, a remake, not an interpretation, but a remake."

In 1983, the music video was released on the home video Phil Collins, available on VHS and LaserDisc, which received a Grammy nomination for Best Video, Short Form at the 27th Annual Grammy Awards. The song itself was also the first track featured on the first release of the Now That's What I Call Music! compilation series.

Personnel

• Phil Collins – vocals, drums and tambourine
• Daryl Stuermer – guitars
• John Giblin – bass guitar
• J. Peter Robinson – piano, glockenspiel and vibraphone
• Strings arranged and conducted by Martyn Ford
• The Mountain Fjord Orchestra – strings

Chart performance

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Other notable cover versions

• The song was covered by the Dixie Chicks on the soundtrack to the 1999 film Runaway Bride. Their version peaked at number 60 on the Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart.

References

References

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