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After I Want You Back, Motown needed a fast follow-up for the Jackson 5, and in December 1969 the group was back in the studio. The song came from the Corporation, the in-house team of Berry Gordy, Alphonso Mizell, Deke Richards and Freddie Perren, who built the lyrics around schoolyard lessons in the alphabet and counting to match the brothers’ ages. ABC was released on February 24, 1970, as the title track of their second album, with The Young Folks on the B-side.

The music came from Los Angeles session players, including Wilton Felder on bass, David T. Walker, Louie Shelton and Don Peake on guitar and Gene Pello on drums, none of them credited under Motown’s policy before 1971. The single sold two million copies in the U.S. in its first two weeks, held No. 1 on the Hot 100 for two weeks in April 1970 and topped the soul chart for four weeks. Television appearances on American Bandstand, The Ed Sullivan Show and The Flip Wilson Show carried it to every demographic.

• Billboard called it a pulsating swinger with all the potential of their first hit.
• It earned a Grammy nomination in 1971 and entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in November 2016.
• After Michael Jackson’s death in 2009 it returned to the Top 50 in Australia, Ireland and the UK.
• Sigala interpolated it in his 2015 debut hit Easy Love.
• 50 Cent told NME that ABC was the first song he remembers hearing.