What 1966 Motown hit by The Four Tops features the line "Standing in the shadows of love"?

The 1966 Four Tops Motown hit featuring the line “Standing in the shadows of love” was “Standing in the Shadows of Love.”

Motown’s Holland–Dozier–Holland songwriting and production team wrote the song, which was recorded by the Four Tops with Levi Stubbs on lead vocals. Motown released it in the United States on November 28, 1966, following the group’s enormous success with “Reach Out I’ll Be There.”

The two songs share a dramatic, urgent arrangement, but their emotional perspectives differ. “Reach Out I’ll Be There” offers reassurance, while “Standing in the Shadows of Love” depicts a narrator anticipating the end of a relationship. That similarity led critics to describe the later song as a deliberate follow-up or reworking of the earlier hit.

The record reached number two on the U.S. soul chart and number six on the Billboard Hot 100; it also reached number six in the United Kingdom. “Bernadette” and “Reach Out I’ll Be There” are nearby Four Tops songs that can cause confusion, but neither is the title identified by the lyric in this question. The song appeared on the group’s 1967 album Reach Out.