I Want to Know What Love Is

"I Want to Know What Love Is"
Picture sleeve for some European releases
Single by Foreigner
from the album Agent Provocateur
B-side"Street Thunder (Marathon Theme)"
ReleasedNovember 21, 1984 (1984-11-21) (US)[1]
November 30, 1984 (1984-11-30) (UK)[2]
RecordedDecember 1983[3]
GenreSoft rock[4]
Length
  • 5:04
  • 6:23 (12-inch extended)
LabelAtlantic
Songwriter(s)Mick Jones
Producer(s)
Foreigner singles chronology
"Luanne"
(1982)
"I Want to Know What Love Is"
(1984)
"That Was Yesterday"
(1985)
Music video
"I Want to Know What Love Is" on YouTube

"I Want to Know What Love Is" is a power ballad[5] by the British-American rock band Foreigner. It was released in November 1984 as the love theme and lead single from their fifth album, Agent Provocateur. The song reached number one in both the United Kingdom and the United States and is the group's biggest hit to date.

"I Want to Know What Love Is" remains one of Foreigner's best-known songs and most enduring radio hits, charting in the top 25 in 2000, 2001, and 2002 on the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Recurrents chart. The song has continued to garner critical acclaim, and is listed as one of Rolling Stone magazine's greatest songs of all time at number 476 in 2004 and at number 479 in 2010.[6]

  1. ^ "FMQB" (PDF). p. 25.
  2. ^ "BPI".
  3. ^ "The Top 100: 54. 'I Want To Know What Love Is'". 4eigner.net. Archived from the original on November 21, 2009. Retrieved February 27, 2021.
  4. ^ Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Best of Love: 16 Great Soft Rock Hits". AllMusic.
  5. ^ "Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart and the 21 Other Best Power Ballads". The Telegraph. United Kingdom. August 18, 2017. p. 12. Archived from the original on January 12, 2022.
  6. ^ "479. Foreigner, 'I Want to Know What Love Is'". Rolling Stone. December 11, 2003. Archived from the original on June 29, 2018. Retrieved November 10, 2016.