The Price Of Love

Album: In Our Image (1965)
Charted: 2
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Songfacts®:

  • After a few years out of the spotlight, the Everly Brothers returned to the UK Top 10 with this self-penned song. However, the duo found less success back home and the single stalled in America. With its heavy beat, ringing guitars, harmonica and tambourine - though remaining still country at the core - the song reflected the influence of the British Invasion on the brothers.
  • The song is warning somebody that they might be in love with a girl now, but soon she will be finished with him and he won't be able to forget about her. Tears and pain are the price men pay for love.
  • The Everlys mini revival in Britain continued later in the year with "Love Is Strange," but their fortunes quickly dwindled and after 1965 they failed to return to the UK Top 40.
  • In 1976 Bryan Ferry recorded this as the lead track of his Extended Play EP peaking at #7 in the UK, with Chris Spedding on guitar. In 1989 a remixed version reached #49.
  • British band Status Quo twice covered this. First in 1969 they recorded it the first time they had gone into a recording studio to record material specifically for release as a single. It flopped, but in 1991 they re-recorded the song for inclusion on their 1991 album Rock 'Til You Drop.
  • Robert Plant and Alison Krauss covered "The Price Of Love" for their 2021 Raise Roof album. The two singers and producer, T-Bone Burnett, took the song down to half-speed and re-imagined it as a seedy alcoholic's lament.

    "Alison likes it dark," said Burnett to Mojo magazine. "One of her theories is that tempo has nothing to do with intensity. She's looking for maximum intensity. She wants to slow things down."

    For their take on "The Price Of Love," Krauss suggested, "That's a great song. Let's just strip it down to nothing and see how dark we can make it."
  • Plant and Krauss' version of "The Price Of Love" opens with half a minute of the instruments quietly dropping in before Krauss arrives with the accusatory warning:

    Wine is sweet and gin is bitter
    Drink while you can, you won't forget her


    By taking their time, Plant and Krauss underline the essence of the song. It "kind of forms before your ears," Plant told The New York Times. "When people stick stuff on the radio now, I think you're allowed like 16 seconds or even less before you're actually hitting a chorus. But then again, we're fishing in a different pool. In fact, we're not even fishing. We're just trying to swim."

Comments: 3

  • Jennifur SunGreat harmonica part really makes the song. To me it is about a relationship that the guy left and he thinks that he can drink, or sex off his mind with some one else.
  • Jeff from Phx, ArizonaActually a great, underestimated, forgotten song that serves as the template for the classic "Pump it Up" by Elvis Costello & The Attractions 12 years later.
  • Andrea F Irawan from Jakarta, Indonesiathis song released in IN OUR IMAGE ALBUM 1966
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