10 tracks
Side one "Miss You" "When the Whip Comes Down" "Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)" "Some Girls" "Lies" Side two "Far Away Eyes" "Respectable" "Before They Make Me Run" "Beast of Burden" "Shattered"

10 tracks
Side one "Miss You" "When the Whip Comes Down" "Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)" "Some Girls" "Lies" Side two "Far Away Eyes" "Respectable" "Before They Make Me Run" "Beast of Burden" "Shattered"

"Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)" is a song by American soul group The Temptations. Released on the Gordy (Motown) label, and produced by Norman Whitfield, it features on the group's 1971 album, Sky's the Limit. When released as a single, "Just My Imagination" became the third Temptations song to reach number one on the US Billboard Hot 100. The single held the number one position on the Billboard Pop Singles Chart for two weeks in 1971, from March 27 to April 10. "Just My Imagination" also held the number-one spot on the Billboard R&B Singles chart for three weeks, from February 27 to March 20 of that year.

Today, "Just My Imagination" is considered one of the Temptations' signature songs, and is notable for recalling the sound of the group's 1960s recordings. It is also the final Temptations single to feature founding members Eddie Kendricks and Paul Williams. During the process of recording and releasing the single, Kendricks left the group to begin a solo career, while the ailing Williams was forced to retire from the act for health reasons. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine listed "Just My Imagination" as number 389 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

A full orchestral arrangement with strings and French horns adorning a bluesy rhythm track and bass line provides the instrumentals. Music critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine of allmusic notes that the song is narrated by a man who imagines a relationship with the woman he loves but is canny enough to realize that his daydreams are fiction, yet is overwhelmed by them. The lyrics capture his resignation to his fantasies. The song as a whole captures their full emotional effect on him. The first two verses establish the theme and explore the narrator's daydreams, in which he and the object of his affections are lovers preparing to be married, to "raise a family" and build "a cozy little home / out in the country / with two children, maybe three." In the bridge, the narrator prays that he will never lose her love to another, or he will surely die." By introducing this doubt, the musical bridge simultaneously bridges the movement from dream to reality, completed when the final lines shift from imagery to bald statement: "But in reality / she doesn't even know me." For Erlewine, "the Temptations' performance has a dream-like quality, quietly drifting through the singer's hopes and desires." We must add that just as the lyrics track the movement from dream to reality, the chorus goes on to anchor the drifting melody in a robust and highly memorable rhythm.

...
Wikipedia