Love Child

"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 (and penultimate) number-one single in the United States, where it sold 500,000 in its first week and 2 million copies by year's end. The record took just three weeks to reach the Top Ten of [[Billboard Hot 100|Billboard'''s Hot 100]] pop chart, which eventually it topped for two weeks (issues dated November 30 and December 7, 1968), before being dethroned by an even bigger Motown single, Marvin Gaye's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine". "Love Child" also performed well on the soul chart — where it spent three weeks at no. 2 (behind Johnnie Taylor's "Who's Making Love") — and paved new ground for a major pop hit with its then-controversial subject matter of illegitimacy. It is also the single that finally knocked the Beatles' "Hey Jude" off the top spot in the United States after its nine-week run. The Supremes debuted the dynamic and intense song on the season premiere of the CBS variety program The Ed Sullivan Show on Sunday, September 29, 1968. In Billboards special 2015 chart of the Top 40 Biggest Girl Groups of All Time on the Billboard Hot 100, "Love Child" ranked highest among the Supremes' six entries. History Recording In 1967, Diana Ross & the Supremes dropped Florence Ballard, engaged new member Cindy Birdsong and added Ross's name to the billing. Following this string of changes, the Supremes had mixed success on the pop charts. "Reflections" peaked at no. 2 on the Billboard'''s Hot 100 and "In and Out of Love" peaked at 9, but the group's next two singles did not reach the Top 20.