Four Tops lead singer Levi Stubbs delivers a passionate vocal on this song, urging his girl to stick with him and ignore the advances of other men. The song was written by the legendary Motown team of Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier and Brian Holland (Holland-Dozier-Holland), who wrote most of the hits for the Four Tops, including "Baby I Need Your Loving" and "Reach Out I'll Be There."
So was there really a "Bernadette"? Yes, and more than one. Dozier explained to Hits magazine in 2003: "There were three Bernadettes, and they were all different girls. We sorta kept that to ourselves that we all had our own Bernadette. We always said, we'd never bring a girlfriend's name into the songs. We had this hidden thing when the name came up, so we didn't say anything. So at least two of us were thinking about the Bernadettes we knew."
In Dozier's case, "Bernadette" was inspired by his unrequited love for a girl when he was 12; a "beautiful Italian girl with eyes for somebody else."
Levi Stubbs stood out as one of the most exciting singers on the Motown roster, with a talent for putting his own stamp on a song. He thrived on songs that were difficult to sing, which made him a good fit for Holland-Dozier-Holland.
In a Songfacts interview with Lamont Dozier, he said: "Levi was a good, dynamic type of singer and he had to stretch singing 'Bernadette' and 'Reach Out.' He had to develop his own feel because although we gave him a demo to practice from and show him the way the song should go, he had to deliver and he had to be dramatic. He took that upon himself, bringing out that dramatic feel of those songs." From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-four-tops/bernadette
