"Baby I Need Your Loving" is a song recorded by the Four Tops for the Motown label. Written and produced by Motown's main production team HollandâÂÂDozierâÂÂHolland, the song was the group's first Motown single and their first pop top 20 hit, making it to number 11 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and number four in Canada in the fall of 1964. It was also their first million-selling hit single.
Cash Box described it as "an intriguing rock-a-cha-cha beat pleader...that [the Four Tops] carve out with solid sales authority." Rolling Stone ranked the Four Tops' original version of the song at No. 400 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
In Australia on the Stateside label, "Baby I Need Your Loving" reached No. 50 on the KMR chart and spent just 6 weeks in the chart of which it entered on 30 January 1964.
Johnny Rivers covered the song in 1967, titled as "Baby I Need Your Lovin". This version reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, surpassing the original version's chart performance. In Canada, the song reached No. 1.
As with Rivers' precedent single, the No. 1 hit "Poor Side of Town", his "Baby I Need Your Loving" was performed in an orchestral pop style, being arranged by Marty Paich and featuring the LA Phil musicians who had performed on the Mamas and the Papas inaugural top ten hits. The second single from the track's parent album, Rewind was also an orchestral pop version of a Motown classic, being Rivers' version of "The Tracks of My Tears".
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