You Need Love (Muddy Waters song)

"You Need Love"
Single by Muddy Waters
B-side"Little Brown Bird"
Released1962
RecordedChicago, July & October 12, 1962[1]
GenreBlues
Length2:35
LabelChess
Songwriter(s)Willie Dixon
Producer(s)
Muddy Waters singles chronology
"You Shook Me"
(1962)
"You Need Love"
(1962)
"Five Long Years"
(1963)

"You Need Love" is a song with lyrics written by American blues musician Willie Dixon. The instrumentation was recorded first by slide guitarist Earl Hooker and backing musicians, then Chicago blues artist Muddy Waters overdubbed vocals, and Chess Records released it as a single in 1962.

The song has since been covered by other artists, including the Small Faces, retitled "You Need Loving". Led Zeppelin subsequently adapted aspects from both renditions for their 1969 hit "Whole Lotta Love", which prompted Dixon to file a lawsuit against them in 1985, after his daughter heard it.[2][3][4][5]

  1. ^ Wight, Phil; Rothwell, Fred (1991). "The Complete Muddy Waters discography" (PDF). bluesandrhythm.co.uk. Retrieved September 29, 2019.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference :2 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Inaba 2011, p. 194.
  4. ^ Hewitt & Hellier 2004, p. 77.
  5. ^ Hann, Michael (April 12, 2016). "Yes, Led Zeppelin took from other people's records – but then they transformed them". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved November 4, 2019.