Is This Love?

Album: Whitesnake 1987 (1987)
Charted: 9 2
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Songfacts®:

  • This mid-tempo rocker shows the sensitive side of Whitesnake's frontman David Coverdale, who wrote the song with guitarist John Sykes. Missing the typical Whitesnake swagger, this song finds Coverdale waiting by the phone for his girlfriend to call.
  • Whitesnake was the name of several of Coverdale's solo projects after he left Deep Purple. This version of the group was breaking up when the single was released, and Coverdale had to put together another band to go on the road to promote it.
  • The videos for both this and "Here I Go Again" feature actress/model and Coverdale girlfriend Tawny Kitaen. They both take place at 5:55 in the morning on city streets filled with fog. >>
    Suggestion credit:
    Ty - Hollywood, FL
  • About a year before this song was released, Survivor issued a single called "Is This Love" that also asked the question, "Is this love that I'm feeling?" That song went to #9 in the US.
  • Coverdale and Sykes wrote "Is This Love?" during the album's early writing process in the south of France. Before Coverdale left the UK, a friend of his at EMI told him they were looking for ideas that could work for Tina Turner. Her What's Love Got To Do With It record had gone global, and knowing Coverdale was going away to write some songs, they told him to let them know if he came up with anything suitable for its follow-up. So when Coverdale started writing "Is This Love," it was for Turner.

    As Coverdale tinkered away at the song in a French villa, Sykes overheard him and said it sounded nice. The Whitesnake frontman informed him it was for Tina Turner, not their band. "He gets his coffee, sits down and starts playing these...," Coverdale recalled in a video. "It was just this organic thing. These ideas just fed really beautiful things that I wouldn't have come up with. Maybe John wouldn't have come up with the chords, but the embellishments were just part of the whole package of the song."

    When Whitesnake's then-record-label head David Geffen heard it, he told Coverdale to keep it for Whitesnake.

Comments: 13

  • DeadpoolThis song is actually about heartbreak.
  • Shery Jones from St Louis MoAlong with David Coverdale and John Sykes who are the other three musicians in this song
  • Laurent from Manama, BahrainThe band was not breaking up as stated in the comments above. Coverdale actually fired them! The band was on hiatus due to Coverdale's health problem. They were given green light to get involved in other projects until he gets better. Neil Murray, for instance, got together with Japanse band Vow Wow. He and Anynsley Dunbar actually had to hire lawyers to get their share of the money yielded by the album. John Kalodner wanted to change the line-up because he wanted to sell a more americanized looking band to the US market. That's how Sykes (who actually Kalodner wanted to stay but his tense relationship to Coverdale made it impossible for him to stay), Neil Murray and Aynsley Dunbar were let go. In came Rudy Sarzo (who spent his entire career copying other bass players's lines), Adrian Vandenberg (who could not get one emotional song our of his guitar even if his life depended on it), Vivian Campbell (no comment) and the great Tommy Aldridge to shoot the video and tour the album. NONE of them played on this song or the album (with the exception of Vandenberg who recorded the lame solo on "Here I Go Again" and Campbell who re-recorded the solo for the single version of "Give Me All Your Love").
  • Danny from Your Town, IaYeah, check out her mug shot. Just google it. It's from when she beat Chuck Finley with her high heels, which actually coming from her sounds kind of kinky! Anyway, time has been rough on her. I remember beingin high school and hating this song since MTV played it every 20 minutes. Now I look back and it was a good song. Kind of gets me in the mood :)
  • Mark from Kitakyushu,Tawny assaulted that Chuck Finley with her high heels while he was driving. He was a pitcher for the Angels.
  • Cristina from Long Beach, Cavery good song i love it its cool and something you can sing along with
  • Nicola from London, EnglandThis song is a real tear-jerking, and touching song. This song is great to listen to, and it's a very powerful ballad.
  • Rjh from Marquette, MiI like this song, but it's too classic and too many things are said over and over again. At least it has some cool sounding verses and it makes it alright.
  • Stratis from Brighton, EnglandJohn Sykes wrote and performed the solo for this song afterr he was fired! He didn't want someone else to take credit for his exceptional work throughout the whole "1987" album.
  • Amy from St. Peters, MoTawny doesn't look so good anymore. She was in the latest season of the Surreal Life and she looked pretty rough.
  • Sophia from London, EnglandThis video makes me smile because i cant stop laughing a coverdales poodle perm!!!
  • Pete from Nowra, AustraliaTawny was also in Batchelor Party with Tom Hanks
  • Kurt from Downers Grove, IlCoverdale's future wife, Tawny Kitaen, is featured in the videos for this and Here I Go Again. Damn she's fine.
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