"Reflections" by Diana Ross and The Supremes

Author: The Best Song Ever (This Week)

"Reflections" by Diana Ross and The Supremes

Flo Ballard was the first leader of The Supremes and gave what would become the biggest "girl group" in the world their name. By the end of the summer of 1967, she was out of the group that would then be known as Diana Ross and the Supremes.

A playlist with "Reflections" and other songs from the Diana Ross and The Supremes era can be found here:

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Hello, and welcome to the BestSong Ever this week, a short deep
dive into a song in what makesit special? The best song Ever this
week this week is Reflections by DianaRoss and the Supremes. I'm your host,

(00:28):
Scott Frampton. We won't be listeningto the song together here, so
please head over to the show notesfor a link to a playlist of Reflections
and other songs of that era bythe Supremes. So let's begin flow.
Ballard had the biggest voice in theSupremes. This was true literally and figuratively.

(00:52):
She had a quick temper but alsoa regal, passionate presence that could
reach the back pew of a church. Ballard had been the group's leader when
they were playing small shows around Detroitas the Primets. Mary Wilson meanwhile,
had the complimentary skills to being jazzyor bluesier or whatever the music called for,
and that then Diane Ross had yetto turn her thin, reedy voice

(01:15):
into an ideal pop commodity. ThePrimates were intended as a distaff version of
the Primes, the male vocal groupthat would go on to be the Temptations.
Smokey Robinson had pitched the Primates toMotown's Berry Gordy in exchange for him
poaching their guitar player for his band, The Miracles. Gordy felt that they

(01:37):
were too young, but ultimately relented, agreeing to let Robinson record the trio
on the provision that they take anew name. He wrote down a list
of suggested names, including the Darlin's, the Sweet Peas, and the Julettes,
and gave them an hour to decide. Ballard came back to him and
said the Supremes. The group hadtheir first hit with Where Did Our Love

(02:01):
Go in nineteen sixty four, withRoss her name changed to the more glamorous
Diana taking the lead vocal. Thatsong was written and produced by the team
of Lamont dojer And Brian and EddieHolland, forever known as Holland Dozer Holland.
The Motown system allowed for producers tokeep working with the group as long

(02:23):
with the hits kept coming, and, as Eddie Holland said, we didn't
write songs, rewrote hits. Ina March nineteen sixty seventh session with The
Supremes, they cut three new songs, including the Happening, a tie in
to a Hollywood movie by that name, which would soon top the pop charts.
It would be the last number onethat Holland Dozer Holland made at Hits

(02:45):
full USA. They would leave Motownat the end of the year in a
dispute of her royalties. The Happeningwould also be the last single by the
Supremes. Reflections, recorded that sameday, would be released on July twenty
four at nineteen sixty seven under thename Diana Ross and the Supremes Flow.

(03:05):
Ballard was on the record, butby the high Summer she was out of
the group. Reflections went to numbertwo on the US pop charts and the
Hazy End of the Summer of Loveblocked from the top spot by Bobby Gentry's
Owe to Billy Joe. The songwould later be the title track to a
nineteen sixty eight album, which webe the group's eleventh and four years.

(03:28):
That would be an impressive output,even for a group that wasn't being worked
relentlessly shuttled around the country for liveengagements and TV appearances. Ballard, Ross
and Wilson were really ever home inDetroit to record both new songs with Holland
dojor Holland and Tribute albums like TheSupremes sing Rogers and Heart and a scrapped
Disney tribute conceived as Walt Disney wasdying of lung cancer. On stage,

(03:53):
they remained perfectly elegant, but allthree members of the group had spent time
in the hospital for physical and mentalbreakdowns. Ross, who by nineteen sixty
seven was Gordy's official girlfriend, wasdown to ninety pounds, her bony shoulders
poking out of the sheek dresses.Ballard's exhaustion was exacerbated by her chafing at

(04:15):
Gordy's favoritism towards Ross, as herdrinking went from bad to worse. Motown
songs, even those about life changingheartbreak, always had an undercurrent of optimistic
energy, befitting the label's slogan.The sound of Young America Reflections reflects its
time, when the war in Vietnamand racial inequality pushed protests into the streets.

(04:40):
The song itself is an inflection point. Motown records wouldn't sound the same
afterward, Feeling the changes in theair, Holland do Jo. Holland added
touches of psychedelic pop to pensive electricpiano and bassist James Jamerson's usual juggernaut groove.
The electronic lips and wishes that introducethe song were thought to be the

(05:02):
first appearance of a Moog synthesizer ona mainstream pop record, but were actually
produced the old fashioned way. Booststudio ingenuity, a test oscillator used for
tuning studio equipment and instruments, wastreated with tape Echo. Motown did infect
by a Moog, but not tillafter the song was completed. The star

(05:23):
Trek sound effects may have been anod to the psychedelic sixties, but those
touches also reinforce the song's lyrics,which vault pass the usual three minutes of
pop song heartbreak and into the distortedreality of depression. Rass sings with a
restrained anguish over a sizzling tambourine thatsounds like locusts. The tension is increased

(05:43):
by sudden, overwhelming swells of stringsin a chorus of flutes. The song
also has two bridges, the firstof which ascends uncomfortably, and the second's
call and response provides the only spacefor Ballard and Wilson to shine. Rass
sounds wrong footed by both, contrastingwith her typical composed charm through the choruses

(06:03):
whoever Ross is singing as he can'thelp but feel for her. Then again,
Ross would have had a lot todraw on in those March sessions.
She, Ballard, and Wilson hadbeen run ragged since they shook off their
Motown nickname of No Hit Supremes.Growing tensions within the group were obvious to
everyone at Motown. Ross had becomebrittle and snappish, Ballard resentful and drinking

(06:26):
overenly and heavily, and Wilson warnedthrough as the peacemaker caught between. After
Ballard was in no condition to performa concert in New Orleans, Gordy instructed
that she'd be put on the nextplane to Detroit and resolved to find her
replacement. He decided on Cindy Birdsongof the group The Bluebells, whose look
was similar to Ballard's. Accounts differon Gordy's firing at Ballard, but none

(06:51):
of them reflect well on his managementstyle. While the change was already decided
and a replacement chosen, Cordy hadno fixed script or plan. Improvising his
way through the meeting at one ofhis homes on a Sunday afternoon in April.
He offered scenarios ranging from a Ballardsolo contract to naming Birdsong, who

(07:14):
waited by the entrance as a Broadwaylike understudy. Ballard was uncharacteristically silent,
which left it to Mary Wilson tosay the obvious her friend, whose obvious
suffering was breaking her heart, reallywanted out the group, and for that
Ballard never forgave her. Diana Rossand the Supremes would go on until nineteen

(07:38):
sixty nine, ending on Cream ofthe Crop, the eighteenth studio album by
the Supremes, Some Day We WillBe Together, intended as a solo track
for Ross and recorded without Wilson,and Birdsong, topped the charts as the
last number one single in nineteen sixties. Florence Ballard died in Detroit nineteen seventy

(08:00):
six of a heart attack resulting fromcoronary thrombosis. She was thirty two.
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