5th Dimension – "Go Where You Wanna Go" (1967)

You gotta go where you wanna go

Do what you wanna do

With whomever you wanna do it with

That third line doesn’t exactly roll trippingly off the tongue, but I think its message is pretty darn clear.

Did you know that the Mamas & the Papas had three songs in the Billboard “Hot 100” in February 1967?

The Mamas & the Papas

The last appearance of “Words of Love” in the “Hot 100” was in the February 18, 1967 issue of Billboard.  (It had peaked at #5 the month before.)

“Dedicated to the One I Love” entered the “Hot 100” the very next week.  (It would climb all the way to #2.)

The Mamas & the Papas’ version of “Go Where You Wanna Go”– which was written by Papa John Phillips and released on the If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears album in 1966 – never made the “Hot 100.”

The 5th Dimension

But the 5th Dimension’s cover of that song – which was that group’s first single – was sitting pretty at #16 the last week of February.   

Take one more look at the lines from “Go Where You Wanna Go” quoted above.  Note that the third line begins “with whomever,” which is grammatically correct, but sounds a bit stiff.

In the Mamas & the Papas version of the song, the line is “with whoever” — not “whomever” – which is presumably how John Phillips wrote it.  

Mackenzie and John Phillips

Given that Phillips reportedly raped his daughter Mackenzie when she was 18 and later had a 10-year consensual sexual relationship with her, it’s not surprising that he doesn’t give a damn about correct grammar.

Here’s a video of the 5th Dimension lip-synching to their cover of “Go Where You Wanna Go” on Casey Kasem's "Shebang" television show:

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