"Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)" is a song by American soul group The Temptations. Released on the Gordy (Motown) label, and produced by Norman Whitfield, it features on the group's 1971 album, Sky's the Limit. When released as a single, "Just My Imagination" became the third Temptations song to reach number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. The single held the number one position on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart for two weeks in 1971, from March 27 to April 10. "Just My Imagination" also held the number-one spot on the Billboard R&B Singles chart for three weeks, from February 27 to March 20 of that year. Today, "Just My Imagination" is considered one of the Temptations' signature songs, and is notable for recalling the sound of the group's 1960s recordings. It is also the final Temptations single to feature founding members Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams. During the process of recording and releasing the single, Kendricks left the group to begin a solo career, while the ailing Williams was forced to retire from the act for health reasons. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine listed "Just My Imagination" as number 389 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time A full orchestral arrangement with strings and French horns adorning a bluesy rhythm track and guitar line provides the instrumentals. Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine of allmusic interprets the song as describing the bittersweet story of a man who fantasizes about the woman he loves and imagines a relationship with her. The narrator is canny enough to realize that his daydreams are fiction and not fact, but nevertheless resigns himself to his fantasies. For Erlewine, "the Temptations' performance has a dream-like quality, quietly drifting through the singer's hopes and desires. The song's first two verses establish the song's theme and explore the narrator's daydreams. In his mind, the narrator and his unrequited love are lovers, prepared to be married, "raise a family", and build "a cozy little home / out in the country / with two children, maybe three". Then, in the bridge, the narrator prays to God that he will never lose the lady's love to another, or he will "surely die". The song's final line, however, reveals that he possesses her love only within the confines of his own imagination: "But in reality / she doesn't even know me." During the late 1960s and early 1970s, producer/composer Norman Whitfield and lyricist Barrett Strong crafted a string of "psychedelic soul" tracks for the Temptations.] By 1970, the Temptations had released psychedically-influenced hits such as "Runaway Child, Running Wild", "Psychedelic Shack", "Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today)", and the Grammy Award-winning "Cloud Nine". In a 1991 interview, Eddie Kendricks recalled that many of the Temptations' fans were "screaming bloody murder" after the group delved into psychedelia, and demanded a return to their original soul sound. "Just My Imagination" was the result of one of the few times that Whitfield relented and produced a ballad as a single for the group. Whitfield and Strong wrote the song in 1969, but with the Temptations' psychedelic soul singles consistently keeping them in the US Top 20, Whitfield and Strong decided to shelve the composition and wait for the right time to record it. In late 1970, the Temptations' single "Ungena Za Ulimwengu (Unite the World)", a psychedelic soul song about world peace, failed to reach the Top 30, and Whitfield decided to record and release "Just My Imagination" as the next single. He approached Barrett Strong, and asked him to pull out "that song we were messing around with a year ago...because I'm going to record it today. Except their late 1960s duets with Diana Ross & the Supremes, the Temptations had not released a single that was not based in psychedelia since "Please Return Your Love to Me" from The Temptations Wish It Would Rain in 1968.

Be the first to comment