- If You Can Want
Infobox Single
Name = If You Can Want
Artist =Smokey Robinson & the Miracles
from Album = Special Occasion
B-side = "When The Words From Your Heart Get Caught Up In Your Throat"
Released =February 8 1968
Recorded =Hitsville USA (Studio A):1967
Format = 7" single
Genre = Soul/pop
Length = 2:25
Label = Tamla
T 54162
Writer =Smokey Robinson
Producer = Smokey Robinson
Last single = "I Second That Emotion "
(1967 )
This single = "If You Can Want"
(1968 )
Next single = "Yester Love"
(1968 )"If You Can Want" is a 1968 single recorded by R&B group
Smokey Robinson & the Miracles forMotown Records ' Tamla label. Written and produced by Miracles lead singerSmokey Robinson , "If You Can Want" was the most successful of the three singles included on the group's 1968 album "Special Occasion". The single peaked at number 11 on theBillboard Hot 100 in theUnited States , at number three on "Billboard's"R&B singles chart , and at number 50 on the United Kingdom singles chart.The song's lyrics portray the narrator as a man in love with a woman who only views him as a casual friend. However, the narrator hopes that the woman will eventually come to appreciate his affections:"If you can want,you can need,""if you can need, you can care,""if you can care,you can love,""So if you wan't me, i'll be there". "If You Can Want" was the group's only major hit in 1968, and was performed by the group on their 1st appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Two other releases that year, "Yester Love" and "Special Occasion", missed the Billboard Hot 100's Top 20, beginning a lull in the Miracles' chart performance until the Top 10 success of "
Baby, Baby Don't Cry " in spring 1969.Credits:
The Miracles *Lead vocals by
Smokey Robinson
*Background vocals byClaudette Rogers Robinson ,Pete Moore ,Ronnie White , andBobby Rogers .
*Guitar byMarv Tarplin Other instruments
The Funk Brothers
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