| "The Power of Love" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Single by Frankie Goes to Hollywood | ||||
| from the album Welcome to the Pleasuredome | ||||
| B-side | "The World Is My Oyster" "Holier Than Thou" | |||
| Released | 19 November 1984 | |||
| Genre | Synth-pop[1] | |||
| Length | 5:30 | |||
| Label | ZTT | |||
| Songwriter(s) | ||||
| Producer(s) | Trevor Horn | |||
| Frankie Goes to Hollywood singles chronology | ||||
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| Music video | ||||
| "The Power of Love" on YouTube | ||||
"The Power of Love" is a song originally recorded and released by British band Frankie Goes to Hollywood. It was written by Holly Johnson, Peter Gill, Mark O'Toole and Brian Nash, four of the five members of the band. It was released by the group as their third single.
Initially issued as a single in November 1984, and taken from the debut album, Welcome to the Pleasuredome (1984), "The Power of Love" followed its two predecessors, "Relax" and "Two Tribes", to the top of the UK singles chart. It scored the band an early December number-one. "The Power of Love" was also a top 10 hit in several European countries, in Australia and New Zealand, and in Canada. "The Power of Love" is often regarded as a Christmas song, despite having no reference to Christmas within the song lyrics. However, the accompanying video features the Nativity of Jesus, and the single cover was The Assumption of the Virgin. The single spent just one week at number one in the UK, outsold by the charity single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" by Band Aid, which until 1997 was the best selling single ever in the UK.
Since then, reissues and/or remixes of the Frankie Goes to Hollywood recording of this song have been top 10 UK hits on two other occasions, hitting number 10 in 1993 and number 6 in 2000. "The Power of Love" has also charted in the UK in a version by Holly Johnson (a solo recording from 1999). The original version by Frankie Goes to Hollywood was featured in the 2012 film Sightseers, the same year that the song was reissued as a digital download and peaked at number 42, in response to a cover version by Gabrielle Aplin. Her recording of the song also went to number 1 in the UK, exactly 28 years after the original Frankie Goes to Hollywood single topped the chart.
Holly Johnson, who co-wrote the song, later reminisced: "I always felt like 'The Power of Love' was the record that would save me in this life. There is a biblical aspect to its spirituality and passion; the fact that love is the only thing that matters in the end".[2]
- ^ Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig, eds. (1995). Spin Alternative Record Guide. New York: Vintage Books. p. 155. ISBN 0-679-75574-8.
- ^ Barton, Laura (15 November 2012). "The Power of Love: a magical hit in which the secular and the spiritual entwine". The Guardian. London, UK. Retrieved 24 November 2023.