In 1959, Ross was brought to the attention of Milton Jenkins, the manager of the local doo-wop group The Primes, by Mary Wilson. Primes member Paul Williams convinced Jenkins to enlist Ross in the sister group The Primettes, which included Wilson, Florence Ballard and Betty McGlown.
In 1976, Billboard magazine named her the female entertainer of the century. In 1993, The Guinness Book Of World Records listed her as the most successful female artist ever (the title is now attributed to Madonna), partly due to her combined total of eighteen number-one singles, six of them recorded solo and the remaining dozen from her work with the Supremes.
Ross was also one of the few pop singers to find modest success in the acting world winning an Academy Award nomination for her role as Billie Holiday in the 1972 film, "Lady Sings the Blues" as well as having hits with other film roles such as "Mahogany", "Out of Darkness" and "Double Platinum", not to mention her role in "The Wiz".
Ross has been awarded many lifetime achievement accolades from many organizations and media outlets: she has been featured on BET, Soul Train, and awarded multiple times at the NAACP Image Awards, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2007 and given the Grammy Lifetime Achievement in 2011.
Ross' professional vocal collaborators have included the following during her career: Marvin Gaye, Lionel Richie, Rod Stewart, Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Julio Iglesias, Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, and Smokey Robinson, among many others.
Love On The Line
Diana Ross Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
In circles and angles
Love runs deep like a tunnel
With a pendulum beat
That touches the heart
In many directions
Moving the mind
Of the lines that touch
The corners and fibers
Of the feeling that keeps
Running inside you
Cycles of fears
With the longing and tears
Letting out the
Needs and laughter
Of sunshine, love shine
Touching the fibers of
The feeling inside you
Letting out the things you hide
Oh, yeah
Need leads the lines of
Love in circles and angles
Need runs deep like a
Tunnel with a pendulum beat
That touches the heart
In many directions
Moving the mind
In silent reflections
Of the lines that touch
The corners and fibers
Of the feeling that keeps
Running inside you
Cylinders of hope
Turning and yearning
Into pendulums of
Weary hesitation
Contemplation
Of the angles and rhymes
And the triangle lines
The feeling touching
Mine with time
Want leads the lines of love
In circles and angles
Want runs deep like a
Tunnel with a pendulum beat
That touches the heart
In many directions
Moving the mind
In silent reflection
Of the angles and rhymes
Of the circles and lines
With the tunnels of
Love running over
Taking the mind and triangle rhyme
And twisting it to fill the cup
Of sunshine, love shine
Touching the fibers of
The feeling inside you
Letting out the things you hide
That touches the heart
In many directions
Moving the mind
In silent reflection
Of the lines that touch
The corners and fibers
Of the feeling that
Keeps running inside you
Cylinders of hope
Turning and yearning
Into pendulums of
Weary hesitation
Taking the fibers
Weaving in and out my heart
And making all my love
Grow deeper
Angles and rhymes
And the circles and lines
With the tunnels of
Love running over
Taking the line and
Triangle rhyme and twisting it
To bend the mind
In all directions
It's love and want and
Need and all those things
Tearing you apart
Submitted by:
In "Love On The Line," Diana Ross expresses her fears and doubts about her lover's fidelity. She is afraid that he is cheating on her or at least seeing another woman, and this suspicion is making her feel paralyzed with love. She is so deeply in love with him that the thought of losing him is like a knife going through her heart. She can't bear to be without him, and the idea of someone else having him is devastating. She wants to know the truth, to find out if her suspicions are justified, but she is also afraid of what she might discover.
The lyrics are full of pain and longing, as well as a sense of urgency to get to the bottom of the situation. Ross sings, "And my life I won't surrender / And I'll find out where you go / There's someone else in love with you / And I deserve to know." She is determined to get to the truth and won't give up until she does. The song ends with a repetition of the chorus, underscoring the singer's determination not to let her love be undermined by someone else.
Line by Line Meaning
When I don't see you
I feel lost and unsure of where you are
And I don't know where you've been
I have doubts about your whereabouts
There gets to be a question in my mind
I start to wonder if everything is alright
It hurts to love you
Loving you brings me pain
And the knife goes through the heart of me
It's a deep and intense pain that feels like a physical wound
When you're gone I lose a part of me
Without you, I feel incomplete and like something essential is missing
That's hard to find
It's hard to make up for the love and connection I have with you
Don't want to fall asleep without you
I dread the idea of going to sleep without you by my side
Don't want to wake
I don't even want to wake up at all
Don't want to wake up when you're gone
If you're not there, I don't want to face the day
I don't know what you do that makes me love you
I can't pinpoint exactly what it is about you that I'm so drawn to
But then love don't mean surrender
Just because I love you doesn't mean I should give up everything else in my life
And it's time I let it show
I need to start being more honest and open with my feelings
You've got someone else in love with you
I suspect that someone else is vying for your attention and affection
And I deserve to know
As your partner, I deserve to be kept in the loop about your romantic interactions
You've been laying our
It seems like you've been spreading your love around
Love on the line
There's something suspicious going on with your love and relationships
That's my suspicion
I have a gut feeling that something is off
When I see her in your eyes
I feel like there's another woman competing for your love
Love undermined
My feelings of love and trust are being threatened
No ammunition
I don't have any proof or evidence, just a feeling of unease
I'm on a mission
I'm determined to find out the truth about what's happening in your romantic life
I don't want to love you paralyzed
I don't want my love for you to be so crippling and painful that it stops me from moving forward
Some misty morning
At some point in the future
When she does the same to you
When another woman treats you the way you're treating me
When she makes you feel like I do
When she makes you feel the same pain and heartbreak that I'm experiencing
That's the day
That's when you'll know how much it hurts to be in this situation
But she can't have you
Even if someone else tries to take you away from me, you are still mine
She can't build a wall around you
No one can isolate you or shut me out of your life
She can't love you like I love you anyway
No one else can love you with the same depth and intensity that I do
I know by midnight if you leave me
I have a feeling that something is going to happen tonight that will change our relationship
And no lies can make the difference
No matter what you say, I won't be fooled by false promises or excuses
More hearts get broken now than need be
People are hurting each other unnecessarily in our world today
And it's right to face the woman
It's important to confront the other woman involved in our love triangle
That steal the away man
Who is trying to take you from me
If there's anything to get you back
If there's anything I can do to win you back
That I must do I can
I'm willing to do whatever it takes to save our relationship
And our love will never be
If we can't work this out, our love may never recover
And my life I won't surrender
I won't give up on my own life just for the sake of our relationship
And I'll find out where you go
I'm not going to let you keep secrets from me anymore
There's someone else in love with you
I can't ignore the fact that there's another woman after you
And it's dying in the heart of me
My love for you is struggling and fading away
And our love should never be
Our love should be strong and unwavering, but right now it feels weakened and unstable
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: DOROTHEA JOYCE
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind