"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" is a Motown song written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong in 1966. The Miracles were the first to record it in 1966, but Gladys Knight & the Pips released the first single in 1967 from the album Everybody Needs Love, delivering a Southern soul and R&B groove that became a big hit. Marvin Gaye then recorded a psychedelic soul version in 1967-68 for the album In the Groove, and released it as a single on October 30, 1968; it topped the Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks and became Motown's biggest hit at the time. The song has been celebrated as a soul classic, with later inductions into the Grammy Hall of Fame for both the Marvin Gaye and Gladys Knight & the Pips versions, and it has been covered by artists such as Creedence Clearwater Revival. The lyric tells of feeling betrayed after hearing about a lover’s infidelity through the grapevine.
