Songfacts®:

• This is one funky shack The Temptations sing about on this track. The place has bear skin rugs, colored lights, and people walking around reciting poetry. This being 1969, places like this really did exist, although the song could also be seen as a unification anthem, welcoming all people in this shack where you could free your mind and be accepted for who you are.
• The Motown songwriters Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong wrote this song, and Whitfield produced it. The Whitfield/Strong team also composed the Temptations hits "Just My Imagination," "Cloud Nine" and "I Can't Get Next To You."
  
  Motown head Berry Gordy considered Whitfield his most versatile producer, able to work in a range of styles that kept the sound fresh. His work helped set the Temptations apart from other groups on the label that relied more on formula.
• With a prominent wah-wah guitar, this song mingled elements of the '60s psychedelic sound with the funk and soul that acts like Sly & The Family Stone were progressing. The guitarist was Dennis Coffey, one of Motwown's Funk Brothers. Norman Whitfield used Coffey on a number of Temptations recordings, starting with "Cloud Nine."
• All five Temptations got at least a line of lead vocals on this track, including their bass man Melvin Franklin, who appropriately sings the "So low you can't get under it" line. David Ruffin had left the group at this point, so the other members were Dennis Edwards, Paul Williams, Otis Williams and Eddie Kendricks.
• This is considered one of the group's most innovative and memorable songs, but not everyone appreciated it at the time. The review in Melody Maker griped, "The group has been almost completely submerged in a welter of incongruous sound-trips."
• This inspired the B-52s hit "Love Shack," which appropriated the "Psychedelic shack, that's where it's at" line into "Love shack, that's where it's at."
• The Temptations had a remarkable 14 #1 R&B hits, but this wasn't one of them - it stalled at #2.