It's Only Love
by Bryan Adams (featuring Tina Turner)

Album: Reckless (1984)
Charted: 29 15
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Songfacts®:

  • Adams wrote this song with Jim Vallance, a songwriter he collaborated with on many of his early songs. It's a duet with Tina Turner, and it helped propel her comeback. Adams performed the song with Turner when he was a supporting act on her Private Dancer tour.

    When Songfacts asked Adams to name his most memorable collaboration, he replied, "Working with Tina Turner was amazing. I used to go to see her in the clubs when I was in my late teens/early 20s before she hit the big time. It was incredible to watch her. Amazingly when we toured together years later, I never saw Tina walk through a performance, she always put on a great show, and was gracious and grateful to her audience. It was such a privilege to have sung with her, especially since I was only 24 at the time."
  • This song takes a nontraditional approach to healing from heartache, reminding us that it's only love, and life goes on. Refreshing words for anyone worn down by songs that remind us that love is his towering emotion that rules our lives.
  • The day before Tina Turner arrived in Vancouver for a concert, her people told Adams she wanted to meet him, so after her show, he went backstage. Turner told him she loved the song and agreed to record her part for "It's Only Love" the next day. Adams likened the experience to a whirlwind passing through.

    "I remember when she left the studio... I looked back into the control room, and I saw the engineers just sort of stood there and I went in and said, 'I hope you got that on tape,'" he recalled to Absolute Radio presenter Leona Graham. "And they all sort of looked at me and said 'yeah, we got it.' It was almost like a tornado had come through the studio and just blown everything apart. It was one of the best moments for me ever recording, for sure."
  • This won for Best Stage Performance at the third annual MTV Video Music Awards.

Comments: 3

  • Brenda Bovill from 81007Very good together
  • Carl, from Long Island, New YorkOhhhhh man Edward, you have got to be kidding me! This is a song that is literally an anthem sung by two legends. If you don't like "gravelly" voices you don't like Teddy Pendergrass, the Temptations, Rod Stewart, James Brown, early Chicago, Blood Sweat and Tears, and a host of others … WOW.
  • Edward from Foster City, MiPeople will hate me for saying this but I've never liked this song. Both Adams and Tina Turner have "gravelly" voices which I hate. So to me the combination of them together is like nails on a chalkboard. The lyrics are all right but I can't stand listening to it.
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