"Love Hurts" is a song written and composed by the American songwriter Boudleaux Bryant. First recorded by the Everly Brothers in July 1960, the song is most well known in two hit versions by UK artists; by Scottish hard rock band Nazareth in 1974 and by English singer-songwriter Jim Capaldi in 1975.
Original version by the Everly Brothers
The song was introduced in October 1960 as an album track on A Date with the Everly Brothers but was never released as a single (A-side or B-side) by the Everlys. Due to a falling out with their manager and publisher Wesley Rose, they were prevented from issuing it as a single, though it had been meant for them. It was after the quarrel was settled in 1964 that they rerecorded it for the 1965 album Rock 'n' Soul.
Roy Orbison covered "Love Hurts" in 1961 and issued it as the B-side to "Running Scared." While "Running Scared" was an international hit, the B-side only picked up significant airplay in Australia. Consequently, chart figures for Australia show "Running Scared"/"Love Hurts" as a double A-Side, both sides peaking at No. 5. This makes Orbison's recording of "Love Hurts" the first version to be a hit.
Chart (1961)
Peak position
Australia
5
Gram Parsons version
Gram Parsons performed the song in harmony with Emmylou Harris on his posthumously released 1974 album Grievous Angel. Harris has continued to perform the song throughout her career.
Performed as a power ballad,[4] the Nazareth version is the most popular version of the song and the only rendition of "Love Hurts" to become a hit single in the United States, reaching No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1976. Billboard ranked it as the No. 23 song for 1976.[5] As part of the "Hot Tracks" EP it also reached No. 15 in the UK in 1977.[6] Nazareth's version was an international hit, peaking at No. 1 in Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, South Africa and Norway. The Nazareth single was so successful in Norway that it charted for 61 weeks on the Norwegian charts (VG-lista Top 10), including 14 weeks at No. 1, making it the top single of all time in that country.[7]
The lyrics of the song were changed for Nazareth's 1975 album, where the original line "love is like a stove/it burns you when it's hot" was changed to "love is like a flame/it burns you when it's hot".
Jim Capaldi reached number 4 in the UK charts with his interpretation of "Love Hurts" in November 1975, which was to prove his highest-charting UK single.[30] Described by Rolling Stone as having "a sense of pain very different from Roy Orbison's."[31] the single also charted in the US,[32] Germany,[33] and Sweden.[34]
American singer Cher recorded her first version in 1975 for the album Stars but did not release this version as a single. She later recorded a second version in 1991 for her album of the same name. This version was a cover of Nazareth's version. The single became a minor hit in the UK in December 1991.
^Marsh, Dave (March 11, 1976). "Album review". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on April 30, 2009. Retrieved August 12, 2011.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
