Fight For This Love

Album: 3 Words (2009)
Charted: 1
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Songfacts®:

  • This is Girls Aloud singer and X Factor judge Cheryl Cole's first solo single from her debut album, 3 Words. It was Cole's first entirely solo release outside of Girls Aloud following her appearance on will.i.iam's "Heartbreaker in 2008.
  • In 2008 Cole's marriage to footballer Ashley Cole ran into difficulties and became a British tabloid fixture amongst allegations of the Chelsea left back's infidelities. However the couple reconciled and stayed together. This song's lyrical content about fighting to stay with the one you love may have been influenced by Cheryl's own relationship difficulties.
  • The song is co-written by Steve Kipner, who also penned "Physical" for Olivia Newton John and "Genie In A Bottle" for Christina Aguilera. It was produced by Wayne Wilkins (Beyoncé, Jordin Sparks).
  • The song's music video was helmed by Norwegian director Ray Kay, who won a MTV Video Music Award for his work on Lady Gaga's Poker Face clip. He told Norwegian website 730.no about the shoot: "The recordings went very well, and Cheryl was fantastic to work with. I drove her very hard at the shoot, and it was very difficult on her part. My job was relaxing in comparison. We made the video in London, with a lot of focus on fashion and dance, with very tough choreography, before putting it all together in Los Angeles afterwards. I have a strong feeling that this will be a # 1 for Cheryl in England!"
  • After Cheryl Cole performed this song on X Factor, numerous fans wrote in to complain of its similarities to "Lil Star" by American singer Kelis, a UK #3 hit in 2007. According to The Daily Star, the singer denied "stealing" the melody, insisting there were no similarities.
  • This topped the UK singles chart in its debut week with a huge 290,000 copies, a total which managed to eclipse the first week sales of the first Girls Aloud single "Sound of the Underground."
  • This was the most popular song of 2009 on UK music streaming service We7.
  • This won Best Song at the 2010 BT Digital Music Awards.
  • The song was hit with a plagiarism lawsuit from publishers at Wardlaw Banks and Peermusic, who alleged that it copies a previously unreleased track entitled "I Want You Back." The lyricists Steven Merritt and Andre Kipner claimed that they never heard "I Want You Back" when writing for Cole. However, Wayne Wilkins, who created the backing music, admitted he did work on "I Want You Back" seven years before he started creating "Fight For This Love," but he "can't remember" the input he had on the track.
  • Selena Gomez was so obsessed with this song that she missed her flight out of London because she was desperately trying to get her hands on the CD. Speaking during an interview on ITV's Lorraine in 2016, she recalled: "I was shooting a movie in Budapest and there was random music videos playing and I saw 'Fight for This Love' and I was obsessed, I was hooked."

    "And I actually had a layover in London and they didn't sell the record in America so I was running to try and catch my connecting flight but I needed to get the CD while I was here."

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