Songfacts®:

• "Young Love" was Janet Jackson's first single, released in 1982 when she was 16. It's an appropriate song for a teenager, with Jackson letting all those guys who are sniffing around know they play her - she's looking for a love that's true, and knows how to find it.
  
  This theme of taking ownership of her love life shows up a lot in Jackson's later work. You'll hear it on songs like "Let's Wait Awhile" and "What Have You Done For Me Lately."
• At the time, music was a side gig for Janet Jackson - her big thing was acting. In the late '70s she was a regular on the sitcom Good Times, and in 1982 when she recorded this song she had a recurring part on another sitcom, Diff'rent Strokes. She bounced between the set and the studio when she was making her self-titled debut album, which includes "Young Love."
  
  Janet is the youngest of the nine children in the very musical Jackson family, so it was almost inevitable that she would take a crack at music. It didn't take right away. She made the rounds promoting the song, including a performance on American Bandstand, but it stalled at #64 in early 1983. A few months later, her next single, "Come Give Your Love To Me," topped out at #58. Meanwhile, her brother Michael had just released his Thriller album, which remains the best-selling album in history worldwide - good luck competing with that!
  
  Over the next few years Jackson kept her focus on acting, joining the cast of the TV series Fame in 1984. That year, she released her second album, Dream Street, but again it was a side project and didn't have any hits. The turning point came in 1986 with her album Control, released when Janet was 19. She was finally laser focused on music and did indeed take control of it, working with her high-powered production team of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis to make an album that asserted her personality and made her a star with six hit singles, including her first #1, "When I Think of You."
  
  Her next album, Rhythm Nation 1814, was released in 1989 and put her in the same class as Michael. By this time, she rivaled him as a singer, songwriter, dancer, hitmaker and video star. They were on different labels but their sibling bond remained strong, and in 1995 they teamed up on the single "Scream."
• "Young Love" was written by René Moore and Angela Winbush, who performed as René & Angela.
  Jackson didn't have any creative input at this stage - she just sang the songs that were chosen for her.
• Jackson didn't perform this song during her hit-heavy years (1986-2003) but in 2008 she put it into her live show as part of a medley, and in 2024 she included it in the setlist for her Las Vegas residency, bringing a whiff of nostalgia to the show.