1983Released
3:16

Did You Know?

Interesting facts and trivia about I Heard It Through The Grapevine. By Songfacts®.

It seems like everyone in Motown heard about this song "through the grapevine" before it was finally recorded. The classic about a man who finds out his woman is cheating on him was written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong. Strong came up with the idea and asked Motown writers Holland-Dozier-Holland to work on it with him. They refused to credit another writer, so Strong took it to Whitfield, who helped put it together. The song eventually became a Motown classic, but it had a rough start, as executives at the company thought it was too bluesy and lacked hit potential. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles were the first to record the song, but their version wasn't released until years later on an album called Special Occasion. The Isley Brothers then took a crack at it, but their version wasn't released. Whitfield and Strong then had Marvin Gaye record the song but still no luck: Motown head Berry Gordy chose Holland-Dozier-Holland's "Your Unchanging Love" over "Grapevine" as his next single. Finally, a new Motown act Gladys Knight and the Pips recorded the song as a gospel rocker. Their version was a hit, entering the Top 40 in November 1967 and going to #2 in America. Marvin Gaye's version was included on his 1968 album In The Groove (later re-titled I Heard It Through The Grapevine). After E. Rodney Jones, the Chicago disc jockey at WVON, started playing it on the air, Berry Gordy reconsidered and released Gaye's version as a single, which became even more popular and known as the definitive version of the song. Gaye's "Grapevine" pounded the charts about a year after Knight's, going to #1 in America on December 14, 1968.

With this heartbreaking tune about a man who finds out secondhand that his girl is cheating on him, Marvin Gaye wrung out the emotion in the song thanks to Norman Whitfield, who produced the track and gave him very specific instructions. Whitfield had Gaye sing slightly higher than his normal range, which created the strained vocal, and he made him do it over and over until he got it right. Gaye explained to NME: "I simply took direction, as I felt the direction he was expounding was a proper one. Had I done it myself I would not have sung it at all like that, but y'see there are many benefits in just singing other people's material and taking directions. The job of interpreting is quite an important one, because when people are not able to express what is in their souls if there is an artist who can... then I think that is very valuable."

Barrett Strong got the idea for the song when he was living in Chicago and heard lots of people using the phrase "I heard it through the grapevine." Said Strong, "Nobody wrote a song about it, so I sat at a piano and came up with the bass line." He took the song to Whitfield, who helped complete it. It was the first collaboration for the writers.

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Song Analysis

Key, BPM (tempo) and time signature of I Heard It Through The Grapevine.
D♯Key
MinorMode
4/4Time Signature
117BPM

Album

The album I Heard It Through The Grapevine is released on.

Released By

The record label that has released I Heard It Through The Grapevine.
UNI/MOTOWN
© 1983 UMG Recordings, Inc.
A Motown Records Release; This Compilation ℗ 1983 UMG Recordings, Inc.

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