Overview
"(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" was one of several songs written and produced by the Holland–Dozier–Holland songwriting and producing team. It was the second hit collaboration between Martha and the Vandellas and the team, with the first being "Come and Get These Memories". The lyrics of "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" feature the song's narrator singing about a guy who has her heart "burning with desire" and "going insane" over the feeling of his love, and questioning, "is this the way love's supposed to be?"
Produced and composed with a gospel backbeat, jazz overtones and, doo-wop call and responsive vocals, "(Love Is Like a) Heat Wave" was one of the first songs to exemplify the style of music later termed as the "Motown Sound". The single was a breakthrough hit, peaking at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100, and at #1 on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart. It also garnered the group's only Grammy Award nomination for Best R&B Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group for 1964, making The Vandellas the first Motown group ever to receive a Grammy Award Nomination.
Some versions of the song have a radio edit that cuts out the repetition of the ending of the instrumental portion of the song, which is in one key, featuring the repeated saxophone and electric piano portion
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