Shop Around

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"Shop Around"

Single by The Miracles featuring Bill "Smokey" Robinson
From the album Hi...We're the Miracles
B-side	"Who's Lovin' You"
Released	October 1960
Format	vinyl record (7" 45 RPM)
Recorded	Hitsville USA (Studio A); 1960
Genre	Soul
Length	3:04 (Detroit version) 2:50 (National hit version)
Label	Tamla T 54034
Producer	Berry Gordy
Chart positions	2 (US), 1 (R&B)
Miracles single chronology
"Way Over There" 1960	"Shop Around" 1960	"Ain't It Baby" 1961

"Shop Around" is a 1960 single by The Miracles (credited as "The Miracles featuring Bill 'Smokey' Robinson") for the Tamla (Motown) label. It is notable as being the label's first #1 hit on the Billboard magazine R&B singles chart, and also hit #2 on the Hot 100.

The song, written by Robinson and Berry Gordy, depicts a mother giving her now-grown son advice about how to find a woman worthy of being a girlfriend or wife ("My mam told me/'you better shop around'"). The original recorded version of the song had a strong blues influence, and was released in the local Detroit, Michigan area before Gordy decided that the song needed to be rerecorded in order to be more commercially viable outside of Detroit. At 2 AM in the morning, Robinson, Claudette Rogers, Bobby Rogers, Ronnie White, and Pete Moore recorded a new, poppier version of "Shop Around" that became a major national hit.

Since its release, "Shop Around" has become an often-remade tune, on record, in live performance, and on television. One notable version by The Captain and Tennille hit #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1976. The Captain and Tennille's Toni Tennille changed the song's lyrics slightly so that they were sung from a woman's perspective.

"Shop Around" also inspired an "answer" record, "Don't Let Him Shop Around," performed by Debbie Dean (the first white artist ever signed to a Motown label). It charted #92 on the Hot 100 in February 1961 and was Dean's only chart entry.

"Shop Around's" b-side, "Who's Lovin' You", also became a Motown classic composition, mostly due to its plethora of covers, including a famous one by The Jackson 5 in 1969.

This song was voted #495 in the List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time