You've Got To Be In Love (To Love a Love Song)

Album: not on an album (1973)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • "You've Got To Be In Love (To Love a Love Song)" opens the fifth and final season of The Brady Bunch, kicking off the season premiere episode "Adios, Johnny Bravo." The six Brady kids sing it in an audition for a TV talent show, with Greg Brady, played by Barry Williams, singing lead. They pass the audition, but Greg is approached by an agent who convinces him he's the real star of the act and transforms him into "Johnny Bravo." His ego consumes him, and his siblings call him out for being a traitor. But not to worry, this being The Brady Bunch, it resolves by the end of the 22 minutes and has a happy ending, with Greg ditching the act and the whole family performing a song called "Good Time Music" on the talent show.
  • The Brady Bunch did a lot of singing throughout the series. They released four albums, starting with a Christmas album in 1970, and often sang on the shows. According to Barry Williams, he and the other actors really did sing, and starting with the second season, they sang the theme song. The "Adios, Johnny Bravo" episode was the last time they sang on the show, but in 1976 they got a spin-off variety show called The Brady Bunch Hour that lasted nine episodes. They did a lot of singing on that one.
  • This song was written by three professional songwriters: Molly Leikin, Annette Tucker and Arthur Hamilton. Leikin explained on the Songfacts Podcast: "I met the producer of the Brady Bunch records and I wrote some songs for them, and that was the first time I'd ever had a song on TV. And I didn't think I'd live - I had rocks in my pockets to keep me from floating away. Not only to be on TV, but to be paid for a network performance - my God, does it get any better than that?

    One of the publishers into whose office I stumbled with my boots and my miniskirt and my eyelashes and my baritone ukulele was a guy named Jackie Mills, and he was producing all the songs for Paramount, which was where the Brady Brunch show was shot. He had to find songwriters to fill up all those episodes."
  • The song was never released and exists only on the TV show. The Brady Bunch lived on in reruns and the Johnny Bravo episode is very popular, so it got a lot of exposure that way. According to its co-writer Molly Leikin, it shows up in all her royalty statements, with earnings from the many countries where the show airs - even Guam!
  • This upbeat tune fits in very well with The Brady Bunch, which kept it chipper. It's about a guy who was never into music until he fell in love. Now he hears music everywhere and is over the moon.
  • Barry Williams sometimes performed in character as Johnny Bravo, and in 1999 released an album called The Return of Johnny Bravo.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Taylor Dayne

Taylor DayneSongwriter Interviews

Taylor talks about "The Machine" - the hits, the videos and Clive Davis.

Barney Hoskyns Explores The Forgotten History Of Woodstock, New York

Barney Hoskyns Explores The Forgotten History Of Woodstock, New YorkSong Writing

Our chat with Barney Hoskyns, who covers the wild years of Woodstock - the town, not the festival - in his book Small Town Talk.

Muhammad Ali: His Musical Legacy and the Songs he Inspired

Muhammad Ali: His Musical Legacy and the Songs he InspiredSong Writing

Before he was the champ, Ali released an album called I Am The Greatest!, but his musical influence is best heard in the songs he inspired.

Amy Grant

Amy GrantSongwriter Interviews

The top Contemporary Christian artist of all time on song inspirations and what she learned from Johnny Carson.

Michael Bolton

Michael BoltonSongwriter Interviews

Into the vaults for this talk with Bolton from the '80s when he was a focused on writing songs for other artists.

Tony Joe White

Tony Joe WhiteSongwriter Interviews

The writer of "Rainy Night in Georgia" and "Polk Salad Annie" explains how he cooks up his Louisiana swamp rock.