It's My House

Valerie Simpson of Ashford and Simpson would say of "It's My House": "The song is about a modern woman who tells her lover: 'I'm independent and may fit you into my space - but on my terms.' Those are Diana's ideas."[1]

Diana Ross biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli would speak of "It's My House" as being a "well known...Diana Ross hit" despite its mild chart impact:[2] stalling at #27 on the Billboard R&B chart, "It's My House" would fail to reach the pop-oriented Billboard Hot 100 (the Record World Pop Singles #101-#150 ranking would rank "It's My House" as high as #106). Taraborrelli would opine that the lack of chart impact made by "It's My House" would cause "many to wonder what happened to Motown's promotional department."[2]

The UK Singles Chart would afford a #32 peak to "It's My House", which was the third UK single from The Boss album - following the title cut and "Nobody Gets the Prize", both of which fared less well on the UK charts than "It's My House" (the UK chart peaks of "The Boss" and "Nobody Gets the Prize" being respectively #40 and #59). Ross' version of "It's My House" would also statistically best a reggae-styled cover version by Storm which despite debuting on the UK Top 75 singles ranking a week prior to the Ross single would rise no higher than #36.[3]

Reaching #71 on the Australian national singles ranking,[4]"It's My House" would have its best global chart showing in South Africa where the Springbok Radio hit parade ranked "It's My House" as high as #6.[5]

Besides the cover by Storm which reached #36 UK, reggae-style recordings of "It's My House" have also been made by Salena Jones (album Love is in the Air/ 1980) and Billy Biggs (album What's Your Sign/ 1980).[6] Latin singer La Lupe covered a Spanish language version of the song ("Es Mi Casa") on her 1980 album "En algo nuevo," which also happened to be her final original album shortly before she announced her retirement.

• The song would also be referenced by rapper Snoop Dogg in his intro to his 2002 album, Paid tha Cost to Be da Boss.
• In the music video Please Hammer, Don't Hurt 'Em, MC Hammer resides in a bizarre home with images of James Brown dancing throughout and references the line "It's my house and I live here" at the end of the video.
• John Mayer performed an acoustic rendition on the Bravo Television show Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in June, 2018 in honor of Ross fan Cohen's 50th birthday.[7]
• Laura Dern sings along with the song in the second season premiere of the HBO drama series Big Little Lies
• In the 2004 movie “White Chicks”, Shawn Wayans sang a snippet of it as he was showing his love interest his house even though it actually belonged to an NFL football player played by Terry Crews.
• The song is sampled on 'Replay', an album track from Lady Gaga's 2020 studio album, ’Chromatica’.[8]
• The song appears in the season two finale of the FX program, "Dave".
• The song appears in season 1, episode 8: "Home School" of The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder on Disney+. A teacher plays this song, ironically while she’s living illegally in the local high school.

• Lead vocals by Diana Ross
• Background vocals by Stephanie Spruill, Maxine Waters and Julia Waters
• Produced by Ashford & Simpson