Beauty Is Only Skin Deep

Beauty Is Only Skin Deep is a hit single of the American soul group The Temptations from 1966 . The song was written by Norman Whitfield in collaboration with Eddie Holland . Whitfield had the instrumentation for two years in advance, in 1964, designed and recorded, but had to wait two years until he somebody, Eddie Holland, found there to write a text.

The text of the song is about inner beauty. The narrator, lead singer David Ruffin, says he has had enough to dating attractive women who do not have good character.That is why he is now with a woman he finds physically not as attractive as his previous girlfriends, but from within so attractive is that it makes everything good. Despite the fact that his friends do not understand the text why he's with her, they are still happy together.

Before the hit version of The Temptations released, had other Motown artists Beauty Is Only Skin Deep is already included. One is Jimmy Ruffin, brother of David. After the success of The Temptations also have Smokey Robinson & The Miracles recorded an album version of the song.

Beauty Is Only Skin Deep, together with Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today), one of the few singles from The Temptations who appeared on a regular studio album. The song came later that year or at the first "Greatest Hits" album by the group. It was also the first single from the Gordy label with the new design of the company on it. Some of these singles would however still wear the old design because the pressers first wanted to make all the empty labels.

Occupation [ edit ]

 * Lead: David Ruffin
 * Background: Melvin Franklin , Paul Williams , Otis Williams and Eddie Kendricks
 * Instrumentation: The Funk Brothers
 * Writers: Norman Whitfield and Eddie Holland
 * Production: Norman Whitfield