1970 – The Love You Save

“The Love You Save” is a 1970 number-one hit single recorded by The Jackson 5 for the Motown label. It held the number one spot on the soul singles chart for six weeks. It held the number one position on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for two weeks, from June 27 to July 4, 1970, replacing “The Long and Winding Road” by The Beatles, and replaced by “Mama Told Me (Not To Come)” by Three Dog Night. It is the third of four Jackson 5 number-ones released in a row (the others are “I Want You Back”, “ABC”, and “I’ll Be There”). “The Love You Save” also features side vocals of Jermaine Jackson singing along-side Michael in the final “Stop! The love you save may be your own.” besides Marlon and Tito Jackson.

While “The Love You Save” is the least-known of the four Jackson 5 number-ones, it has one of the most distinctive melodies and is the most musically complex of the four singles. The song’s lyrics feature Michael and Jermaine Jackson warning a “fast” girl to slow down and “stop!” because “the love you save may be your own!”

The opening exclamation of “stop” and the footstomps that complement the rhythm during the latter part of the song are allusions to the 1965 number-one Motown single by The Supremes, “Stop! In the Name of Love”. The Jackson 5 essentially replaced The Supremes as Motown’s main focus in the early 1970s, although Diana Ross, who left the group for a solo career not long before the release of this single, was publicized as having discovered the Jackson 5.

Like most of the other early Jackson 5 hits, “The Love You Save” was written and produced by The Corporation, a team composed of Motown chief Berry Gordy, Freddie Perren, Alphonzo Mizell, and Deke Richards and recorded in Los Angeles, California, away from the old Motown studio at Hitsville USA in Detroit, Michigan.

“The Love You Save” was the second single from the second Jackson 5 album, ABC.

Allmusic Review

The Jackson 5′s “The Love You Save” has the same elements used on the group’s last two number one records: the super-charged youthful energy of the brothers, the interplay between Michael and Jermaine, Tito’s kid-bass voice, and top L.A. session musicians. The formula was foolproof. “The Love You Save” hit number one R&B in the summer of 1970 and parked at the top of the pop charts for two weeks. The lyrics of the song were a play of words of the traffic safety slogan “the life you save maybe your own.” Transformed into an admonishment of “fast girl” behavior, the song shares an opening similar in form to the Supremes’ “Stop in the Name of Love”; while lead singer Diana Ross’ “stop!” opening is ’60s cool, Michael and the J-5′s “stop!!” stops listeners in their tracks like the seering siren of an full-throttle ambulance. Arguably no other track in the group’s catalog attained so much mesmerizing mania. “The Love You Save,” along with their other chart-toppers, “ABC” and “I Want You Back,” was used in the opening montage for the early-’70s ABC-TV cartoon series based on the group.

One Response to “1970 – The Love You Save”

1. mjtheone says:

   February 25, 2010 at 7:24 am

   I love it when Michael sings “Stop the love you save may be your own, baby”. He sounds so cute and mature at the same time