"I Love How You Love Me" is a song written by Barry Mann and Larry Kolber. It was a 1961 Top Five hit for the pop girl group the Paris Sisters, which inaugurated a string of elaborately produced classic hits by Phil Spector. Bobby Vinton had a Top Ten hit in 1968 with a cover version. The song has been recorded by many other artists over the years.
The Paris Sisters version
Background
The Paris Sisters recorded "I Love How You Love Me" at Gold Star Studios in the autumn of 1961 with Phil Spector as their producer. The group vocalized repeatedly to a piano accompaniment until Spector was satisfied with the balance between the voices, after which a string arrangement which Spector worked on over several days with Hank Levine was added.[1] The song featured a spoken recitation by lead singer Priscilla Paris, speaking the first half of the repeated first verse in an unsung manner over the instrumental break.
According to Lester Sill, with whom Spector was then staying, Spector would bring the tapes for "I Love How You Love Me" from Gold Star Studios every evening to review in his room: "he would wake me up at three or four in the morning, listening to [the song] over and over again at a very low level." Sill says Spector "must have remixed the strings on that song thirty times; then listened to it for another four or five days before he was sure it was right. Then finally when the record was pressed he listened to the pressing for another two or three days before he gave it an approval."[1]
Spector's interest in the song was occasioned by its structural similarity to "To Know Him Is to Love Him", the No. 1 hit that Spector's group, the Teddy Bears, had scored in 1958. Annette Kleinbard who had been the Teddy Bears' vocalist, would weep upon hearing The Paris Sisters' "I Love How You Love Me" on her car radio: "Before [Priscilla Paris] sung five words I knew it was Phil's record...it was just the most beautiful record, but I loved it and I hated it at the same time; it felt like Phil had taken my voice and passed it on to someone else".[1] However Priscilla Paris would opine: "My sound was not like Annette's - she had a very thin type of little girl voice. I have a heavy roque - that's a French word meaning very heavy, husky - voice. I think Phil fell into something he wanted to do, added extra ingredients, and ended up with something different."[2]
"I Love How You Love Me" was originally intended for Tony Orlando, to be arranged in the same upbeat style as Orlando's precedent hits "Bless You" and "Halfway to Paradise".1 The song was written by Barry Mann and Larry Kolber (aka Kolberg) who were staff writers at Don Kirshner's Aldon Music near the Brill Building. Kolber had written the lyrics on a restaurant napkin within five minutes. When Phil Spector discovered the song on a visit to Kirshner's Aldon offices he persuaded Kirshner that the song would have more potential if rendered by a female act. Spector then recorded "I Love How You Love Me" with The Paris Sisters.
Entering the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1961, "I Love How You Love Me" reached No. 5 that November.[3]
Bobby Vinton version
Background
Bobby Vinton made a comeback in the late 1960s when producer Billy Sherrill had him remake songs which had been hits a few years previous. Vinton took his cover of "I Love How You Love Me" to No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 2 on the Billboard Easy Listening chart.[4] The hit re-vitalized Vinton's recording career and was certified Gold by the RIAA. Due to the success of the single, Epic Records released the album I Love How You Love Me that was also a best seller into 1969. Vinton followed up with a version of "To Know Him Is to Love Him" with a track entitled, "To Know You Is to Love You" (coincidentally Vinton's precedent single to "I Love How You Love Me" had been a remake of "Halfway to Paradise" the Tony Orlando hit to which "I Love How You Love Me" had been written as the intended followup).
Marika Gombitová version
Background
"Luk a šíp" (English: Bow and Shaft) is a cover version of the Paris Sisters song, recorded by Slovak female singer Marika Gombitová.[5] Her version, with featuring alternate lyrics, was released on Diskotéka OPUSu 1 compilation by OPUS in 1978.[6]
Personnel
Other versions
- Nino Tempo claims that the Ryans' version of "I Love How You Love Me" was a copy of an upbeat 1965 version he cut as a single with April Stevens which featured fuzz guitar and bagpipes and which failed to chart.[10]
- "I Love How You Love Me" was also a non-charting single for the Spokesmen in 1966 before being successfully revived in 1968 by Bobby Vinton.
- The Lettermen covered the song on their album I Have Dreamed, with the spoken part omitted in the middle of the song.
- Virginia Lee (af) recorded "I Love How You Love Me" for her 1970 album Yours!.
- Roxy Music front man Bryan Ferry recorded a rendition of "I Love How You Love Me" for his first solo album These Foolish Things (1973).
- Jonathan Butler reached number 4 in the South African chart in 1975 with his rendition.[11]
- Tracy Huang (zh) recorded the song for her 1976 album Feelings.
- "I Love How You Love Me" has been a C&W hit for both Lynn Anderson (No. 10 - 1979) and Glen Campbell (No. 17/ also A/C No. 35 - 1982).
- Cheryl Ladd recorded her own rendition of "I Love How You Love Me" for her third and last Capitol Records album Take A Chance (album).
- Michael Damian covered the song and featured it as the B-side of his 1981 debut single, a cover of Eric Carmen's "She Did It."
- Teen Queens had a No. 14 hit in Australia in 1992 with their remake entitled "Love How You Love Me".
- The original version of the Roxette track "Anyone" recorded in 1998 with Per Gessle singing included a large segment of "I Love How You Love Me" which was omitted on the track as it appeared on the 1999 album Have a Nice Day where it was sung by Marie Fredriksson rather than Gessle. However the original version was included on the single release of "Anyone" on which it was subtitled "Tits & Ass Demo 1998".
- "I Love How You Love Me" has also been recorded by Eddy Arnold, Chet Atkins, the Babys, The Broken Family Band, Dana (No. 27 in the Netherlands in 1976), Camera Obscura, Kria Brekkan, Billy Fury, the Lettermen, Lorrie Morgan, Mud, Neutral Milk Hotel, Beth Orton, Sandy Posey, Topi Sorsakoski (Finnish "Vain yksin me kaksi"), Jerry Vale, Jeff Mangum, Wizex (as "En vän för alltid") and Rachel York.
- The 2000-01 European hit "Love How You Love Me" by Melanie Thornton (Austria No. 48/ Germany No. 15/ Switzerland No. 29) is not related to "I Love How You Love Me" rather being an original composition by Thornton co-written with Mitchell Lennox and Julien Nairolf.
- Kramer produced and sang his version of this song for his Tzadik Records album The Brill Building (2012).[12]
- In the Sonny and Cher biopic And the Beat Goes On, televised in 1999, Cher - who was visiting Sonny Bono in the studio where the track for "I Love How You Love Me" is being recorded - is pressed into service by Spector to sing the song as a scratch vocal (Kelly van Hoose Smith provides "Cher"'s vocals). In fact Sonny Bono did not go to work for Spector until a year after the Paris Sisters' cut "I Love How You Love Me" and it was also in the autumn of 1962 that Bono and Cher first met. However, Cher did first work as a session vocalist in July 1963 when while visiting Bono at Gold Star Studios she was pressed into service by Spector to fill in for the unavailable Darlene Love to sing on the session for the Ronettes' "Be My Baby".[13]
See also
References and notes
- Notes
- 1 When Larry Kolber heard the Paris Sisters recording he likened it to a "funeral dirge".[1]
- General
- Specific
- 1 2 3 4 Brown, Mick (2007). Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: the rise and fall of Phil Spector (1st US ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 82–83. ISBN 978-1-4000-4219-7.
- ↑ Greig, Charlotte. "The Paris Sisters". Spectropop. Retrieved 2010-08-30.
- ↑ Whitburn, Joel (2004). The Billboard Book of Top 40 Hits: Eighth Edition. Record Research. p. 480.
- ↑ Whitburn, Joel (2002). Top Adult Contemporary: 1961-2001. Record Research. p. 250.
- ↑ Lehotský 2008a, p. 21.
- ↑ For Marika Gombitová's discography, see Lehotský 2008a, pp. 54–56..
- ↑ Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 125. ISBN 1-904994-10-5.
- ↑ Roberts (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums. p. 189.
- ↑ Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums. p. 477.
- ↑ "Nino Tempo". Spectropop.com. Retrieved 2013-02-11.
- ↑ Brian Currin. "South African Rock Lists Website - SA Charts 1969 - 1989 Acts (B)". Rock.co.za. Retrieved 2014-06-28.
- ↑ "Kramer: The Brill Building > Review". Allmusic. Retrieved July 17, 2015.
- ↑ Coplon, Jeff/Cher (1998). The First Time (1st ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 86. ISBN 0-684-80900-1.
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