The Love You Save

"The Love You Save" is a 1970 #1 hit single recorded by The Jackson 5 for the Motown label. It held the #1 position on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart for two weeks, from June 20 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 #1's released in a row (the others are "I Want You Back", "ABC", and "I'll Be There")

While "The Love You Save" is the least-known of the four Jackson 5 #1's, 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 eclaimation of "stop" and the footstomps that compliment the rhythm during the latter part of the song are allusions to the 1965 #1 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 comprised 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.

Credits

• Written and produced by The Corporation™: Berry Gordy, Jr., Freddie Perren, Alphonzo Mizell, and Deke Richards
• Lead vocals by Michael Jackson, Jermaine Jackson, and Tito Jackson
• Background vocals by Michael Jackson, Jermaine Jackson, Tito Jackson, Jackie Jackson, and Marlon Jackson
• Instrumentation by various Los Angeles studio musicians