During the recording of the album, Paul Williams, already possessing a fragile condition because of sickle-cell disease, was now also fighting complications from five years of heavy alcoholism.

The album cover, a collage/illustration by Hermon Weems, places photographs of the Temptations in a depiction of a psychedelic shack: an establishment in urban neighborhoods where people could go to "enhance their minds" through art, music, and mind-altering drugs.

Finding a phonograph, the stranger drops the needle on the song that happened to be in the player—The Temptations' 1969 number-one hit "I Can't Get Next to You".

"You Make Your Own Heaven and Hell Right Here on Earth", later issued as the B-side of the 1971 hit "Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)", features Edwards, Kendricks, Franklin, and Otis Williams informing the public that each individual person is responsible for their fate and that "the final decision [to do right or wrong] is still up to you".

Whitfield stretched out and slowed down the song with The Truth, and their version was one of the group's several minor hits, making #72 and #24 on the Pop and R&B Charts, respectively.

"Hum Along and Dance", essentially wordless, is an example of Whitfield's growing emphasis on his production and instrumentation at the expense of The Temptations' vocals, an issue that caused a significant amount of friction between the group and their producer.

"Take a Stroll Thru Your Mind" is a popular Temptations album track done in psychedelic/blues style, and is an overt eight-minute ode to marijuana usage.

For all the hyperactivity of his horn charts, Norman Whitfield is a lot better equipped to get funky than to lead Motown's belated raid on 'relevance,' and many of these lyrics are dreadful.