The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)

"The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss)" is a song written by Rudy Clark. The song was made a hit when recorded by Betty Everett, who hit #1 on the Cashbox magazine R&B charts with it in 1964. Recorded by dozens of artists and groups around the world in the decades since, the song became an international hit when remade by Cher in 1991.

Vinyl Recordings

Betty Everett hit, Merry Clayton original and Ramona King single

Calvin Carter, the chief A&R man for the Chicago-based Vee-Jay Records, found "It's in His Kiss" while visiting New York City in search of material for the Vee-Jay roster which included Betty Everett. After Everett had a hit with another song Calvin Carter brought back from New York City, "You're No Good", Calvin Carter suggested Everett cut "It's in His Kiss" as the follow-up single. Everett — who found the song puerile — reluctantly agreed. The accompanying vocals on Everett's recording were provided by Vee-Jay session regulars the Opals, who were four teenage girls from East Chicago, Indiana.

Dave Marsh in his book The Heart of Rock and Soul opines that Betty Everett's version, "while [credited] as a solo performance is one of the finest girl group hits, undoubtedly the best one made outside the genre's New York City/Philadelphia/Los Angeles "axis"".^[1]

In fact the song was rejected on behalf of the premier girl group of the early '60s, the New York-based Shirelles^[2] and was first recorded in New York City by Merry Clayton with vocal accompaniment by the Blossoms; produced by Jack Nitzsche and entitled "It's in His Kiss", Clayton's version was released in June 1963 on Capitol with no noticeable result.

Another version of "It's in His Kiss" by Los Angeles-based vocalist Ramona King (produced by Joe Saraceno and Jerry Riopelle) was released on Warner Brothers in January 1964, the week prior to the release of Everett's version. Although Everett's single was more likely to receive airplay due to her being an established hitmaker (with "You're No Good"), Vee-Jay feared losing sales to the King version and opted to distinguish Everett's version by issuing it under the title "The Shoop Shoop Song" referring to the song's background vocals. "The Shoop Shoop Song" became the second biggest, though perhaps most memorable, hit of Everett's career, reaching #6 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and R&B Singles charts in April 1964. Everett's "The Shoop Shoop Song" was also a #1 R&B hit according to Cash Box.

The Everett version was initially overlooked in the UK in 1964 although Everett's minor 1965 U.S. hit "Getting Mighty Crowded" (#65) would reach #29 UK. In 1968 UK label President Records reissued both songs on one single, with "The Shoop Shoop Song" as the A-side, and this release hit the UK Top 40, peaking at #34.

1960s and 1970s covers

"The Shoop Shoop Song" had its first significant UK profile performed by a male act, the Searchers — with Mike Pender on lead — who cut the song as "It's in Her Kiss" for their April 1964 album release It's the Searchers. The song — similarly entitled — was subsequently recorded by the Hollies and the Swinging Blue Jeans while "Britgirls" Helen Shapiro, Lulu and Sandie Shaw all recorded "It's in His Kiss", though none of these versions was released as a single.

In 1974 the song was covered by Australian band the Bootleg Family Band. "The Shoop Shoop Song" was a top 5 hit for the band who later on became known as Avalanche.^[3]

"The Shoop Shoop Song" first became a major UK hit in 1975 via a disco version by Linda Lewis produced by Bert de Couteaux and Tony Silvester and featuring Luther Vandross as a background vocalist. Entitled "It's in His Kiss" — despite containing a variant of the "shoop shoop" background vocal — Lewis' version reached #6.

Kate Taylor had her one chart single in the U.S. (#49) with a 1977 acoustic remake of "It's in His Kiss"; the counter vocal was by James Taylor who produced (with Lew Hahn). Linda Ronstadt had planned to cut a remake of "The Shoop Shoop Song" with Nicolette Larson; this idea was abandoned but Ronstadt and Phoebe Snow performed the song live on a 1979 episode of Saturday Night Live. (Ronstadt also sang the song solo during her 1980 appearance on The Muppet Show.^[4])

The Swinging Blue Jeans hit #3 in the UK with their cover of Betty Everett's previous single to "The Shoop Shoop Song", "You're No Good", but the group's version of "It's in Her Kiss" was unreleased until 1998 when it was included on the At Abbey Road compilation.

Other versions of "The Shoop Shoop Song" have been cut by Aretha Franklin, Vonda Shepard, The Chipettes, The Supremes, and (as "It's in Her Kiss") by The Newbeats and The Nylons.

Cher version

Cher's remake was cut for the soundtrack of her 1990 film Mermaids in which it played under the closing credits, and the single's U.S. release coincided with the November release of the film. The lackluster box office performance of Mermaids was mirrored by the chart performance of "The Shoop Shoop Song" single, which peaked at #33 in January 1991, signaling the end of the hit-streak Cher had enjoyed in the U.S. since 1987.

The lack of American enthusiasm for Cher's "The Shoop Shoop Song" led to another cut, her remake of Barbara Lewis' "Baby I'm Yours", being the lead single from the Mermaids soundtrack in the UK and Continental Europe. However, after that song failed to become a hit — barely scraping the UK charts at #89 — "The Shoop Shoop Song" was issued as a single, backed with "Baby I'm Yours", and reached #1 on the UK chart of 4 May 1991, staying atop the chart for five weeks. Cher's first solo number one. Her last number one was back in 1965 with Sonny: "I Got You Babe."

Cher's "The Shoop Shoop Song" was also a #1 hit in Austria, Republic of Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and Spain; the single achieved a #2 peak in Australia and Top Ten status in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland.

The success of the single in the UK and Continental Europe was reflected in its addition to Love Hurts, her subsequent album, as released in those parts of the world, Australia and New Zealand. "The Shoop Shoop Song" was also included in the album's Canadian release but in the U.S. "The Shoop Shoop Song" was not available on a Cher album until the 1999 release of If I Could Turn Back Time: Cher's Greatest Hits.

Statistics

Charts