♫ Everlasting Love ♫

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, History, music

I’ve played this one once before … just a little over two years ago.  Tonight, I went in search of a ‘recovery’ song … one that would help me recover from yesterday’s selection!  And this is what I found!

Tonight’s song is one that will get the blood pumping and the toes tapping … but … which version???  Mac Gayden and Buzz Cason originally wrote this song for Robert Knight in 1967.  The song has been recorded by a number of prominent artists, with four different versions charting in the United States and an astounding seven versions in the UK, the biggest of which was by the English band Love Affair, who reached #1 on the UK charts in 1968, relegating Knight’s original to #40. However, the Knight version was reissued in the UK in 1974 and reached #19.

Love Affair used session musicians rather than the band itself on their version. The only member of the group who performed on it was their 16-year-old vocalist Steve Ellis.  The highest-charting version of this song in the United States (and my favourite, though I like the others also) was by Carl Carlton, whose cover reached #6 in 1974. Carlton kicked off a career in soul, R&B, and funk in the late 1960s, originally recording as “Little Carl” Carlton, in synergy with Stevie Wonder, who also started out as “Little Stevie.”

Chart breakdown of the “Everlasting Love” covers:

Robert Knight (1967): #13 US, #19 UK
Carl Carlton (1974): #6 US
Rex Smith/Rachel Sweet (1981): #32 US, #35 UK
Gloria Estefan (1995): #27 US, #19 UK
Love Affair (1968): #1 UK
Worlds Apart (1993): #20 UK
Cast From Casualty (1998): #5 UK
Jamie Cullum (2004): #20 UK

U2 released a version of this song on their All I Want Is You single. According to the song’s co-writer Buzz Cason in 2015 …

“We still don’t know why U2 did ‘Everlasting Love.’ It was a very big song in England. A bigger song in England than it was in the States. It was a #1 record by a band called the Love Affair in England, so everybody knew it. So I kind of assumed that it was the same in Ireland where Bono and all those guys were and they just decided one night, ‘Hey, let’s throw this thing together.’  They don’t even do the lyrics right on it. But I raced cars for years and one of my mechanics called me and said, ‘Hey, listen to what’s in the background. That’s U2 singing your song.’ I was like, ‘Oh no, man, that’s got to be somebody else. That can’t be.’ It was just surreal.”

Since the versions that were popular in the U.S. largely flopped in the UK, and vice versa, I’m playing several versions tonight.  Gloria Estefan also recorded this song, and while I love Gloria Estefan’s music, her cover of this song was … meh … so, in the interest of time (both mine and yours) and energy (largely mine), I will leave out her version and play instead, Robert Knight’s (he gets top billing, since it was his song, after all), Carl Carlton’s (because it’s my favourite and this is my blog), and the UK fave, Love Affair’s.  Let me know which you like best.

Everlasting Love
Robert Knight/Carl Carlton/Love Affair

Hearts go astray, leaving hurt when they go.
I went away just when you needed me so.
Filled with regret I come back beggin’ you,
Forgive, forget. Where’s the love we once knew?
Open up your eyes, then you’ll realize here I stand
With my everlasting love.
Need you by my side, girl you’ll be my bride.
You’ll never be denied everlasting love.
From the very start, open up your heart,
Be a lasting part of everlasting love.
Real love will last forever.
Ooh, ooh.

Where life’s river flows, no one really knows
’til someone’s there to show the way to lasting love.
Like the sun that shines, endlessly it shine,
You always will be mine. It’s everlasting love.
When other loves are gone, ours will still be strong,
We have our very own everlasting love.
Real love will last forever.
You give me, you give me, you give me everlasting love

Ooh.

Open up your eyes, then you’ll realize here I stand
With my everlasting love.
Need you by my side, girl you’ll be my bride.
You’ll never be denied everlasting love.
From the very start, open up your heart,
Be a lasting part of everlasting love.
Real love will last forever.

Open up your eyes, then you’ll realize here I stand
With my everlasting love.
Need you by my side, girl you’ll be my bride.
You’ll never be denied everlasting love.

Open up your eyes, then you’ll realize here I stand
With my everlasting love.
Need you by my side, girl you’ll be my bride.
You’ll never be denied everlasting love.

Open up your eyes, then you’ll realize here I stand
With my everlasting love.
Need you by my side, girl you’ll be my bride.
You’ll never be denied everlasting love.

Songwriters: Mac Gayden / Buzz Cason
Everlasting Love lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Downtown Music Publishing, Peermusic Publishing, Royalty Network

Note:  Lyrics vary slightly from one cover to another.  Being that it is nearly 3:00 a.m., I took the lyrics that seemed most prevalent.  Any errors are my own due to exhaustion.

28 thoughts on “♫ Everlasting Love ♫”

  1. Pingback: ♫ Everlasting Love ♫ | Let the cleanup and recovery begin.Prayers for all who met Ian's wrath.

  4. Like Rawgod, this song always fetched my cynicism. You left, now you’re back, and YOU’RE TELLING ME to open up my eyes? Umm, hello, you left, not me. How dare you lecture me.

    But I prefer the Carlton or Knight versions. DID NOT like the U2 version. Like, whaaattt?

    Hugs and cheers, M

    Liked by 2 people

    • See, that’s one of the very few advantages of being nearly deaf! You can hear the music, but can never understand the lyrics, so eventually you might, as I do when i post a song here, look up the lyrics, but by that time you’ve already decided you really like the song, so the lyrics just don’t matter as much. Unless they are really vulgar or disgusting. Then, or course, they matter and make the song no longer pleasurable.

      Hugs and cheers, dear Michael!

      Liked by 2 people

  5. Great song and post Jill, all 3 are great, however grew up with the Love Affair version in NZ and I may seem biased but it sounds more romantic and polished to me. I think this may have been the version used in the film “Belfast”

    Liked by 3 people

    • Thanks, sklyjd! Ahhhh … so you are in New Zealand? I didn’t know … another long-time reader, Barry, is also from NZ and I have come to really like the way you guys do things over there! I think that most everyone from outside the U.S. preferred the Love Affair version, not surprisingly. I like all three and don’t really have a single favourite.

      Liked by 1 person

      • Sorry Jill, I have led you astray, I now live in Australia, I am a Kiwi and I lived in NZ for almost 50 years. I am now well established in Australia on the Gold Coast in Queensland but visit NZ very often as I have many friends and my Kiwi daughter and her Russian boy friend lives there. It is simply a 3 hour trip on an airplane.

        Liked by 2 people

  6. Definitely a super popular song, luv it! I’ll have to go with the Love Affair performance, original is still the best. Altho i was pleasantly surprised to hear U2 made a cover, I’m checking it out now!
    This is fun 😀

    Liked by 1 person

  8. I suspect you’re going to get a divide on this, based on where we are from. For me, it has to be the Love Affair, the version I grew up with. I bought their album, too, which was full of the hit singles they had here. They did play on their B-sides and at live gigs, but were a bit hampered: the oldest of the six members was 19 when this was released, and one of the band went back to school to finish his A-levels before they made the album. One of the backing singers on their version was Kiki Dee, who had a #1 both sides of the pond with Elton John – Don’t Go Breaking My Heart. Another pop classic.

    Liked by 4 people

    • Indeed … the last time I played it I was surprised by how many various opinions there were. I think most of the UK liked the Love Affair version best … understandably. I did not realize that Kiki Dee was one of the singers for Love Affair! Thanks! I was gonna say I might play that one soon, but I’ve played it twice in the last two years, so I’ll probably wait ’til sometime next year.

      Liked by 2 people

      • Sounds like a plan for next year then. If you want something you may not have played before, one of the other backing singers was the late Lesley Duncan who, amongst other songs, wrote ‘Love Song,’ which Elton John recorded for his Tumbleweed Connection album. It’s a beautiful song, and she sang backing vocals on that one too.

        Liked by 2 people

  9. “I went away just when you needed me so. Filled with regret I come back beggin’ you, Forgive, forget.”
    The girl is just supposed to take the guy back, after he’s the one who left in the first place, just cuz he say’s so. Sorry, but love doesn’t work that way! Definite thumbs down on this song, no matter who sings it.

    Liked by 3 people

  10. Pingback: ♫ Everlasting Love ♫ — Filosofa’s Word | Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News

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