| Love to Love You Baby | |
| Cover: | Love to Love You Baby by Donna Summer 1975 US vinyl A-side.jpg |
| Caption: | A-side label of US vinyl single |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | Donna Summer |
| Album: | Love to Love You Baby |
| B-Side: | Need-a-Man Blues |
| Released: | June 1975 (Netherlands, as "Love to Love You") November 26, 1975 (worldwide, as "Love to Love You Baby") |
| Recorded: | 1974 (as "Love to Love You") May–June 1975 (as "Love to Love You Baby") |
| Studio: | Musicland, Munich, West Germany |
| Length: | 3:20 (original NL version) 16:49 (album version) 4:57 (single version) |
| Label: | Oasis |
| Producer: | Pete Bellotte |
| Prev Title: | Lady of the Night |
| Prev Year: | 1974 |
| Next Title: | Virgin Mary |
| Next Year: | 1975 |
"Love to Love You Baby" is a song by American singer Donna Summer from her second studio album, Love to Love You Baby (1975). Produced by Pete Bellotte, and written by Italian musician Giorgio Moroder, Summer, and Bellotte, the song was first released as a single in the Netherlands in June 1975 as "Love to Love You" and then released worldwide in November 1975 as "Love to Love You Baby". It became one of the first disco hits to be released in an extended form.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame named it one of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll, Summer's only selection on this list.[1]
By 1975, Summer had been living in Germany for eight years and had participated in several musical theatre shows. She had also released an album in The Netherlands entitled Lady of the Night (1974), written by Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte and produced by Bellotte, which had given her a couple of hit singles. She was still a complete unknown in her home country when she suggested the lyric "Love to Love You Baby" to Moroder in 1975. He turned the lyric into a full disco song and asked Summer to record it. The full lyrics were somewhat explicit, and at first, Summer said she would only record it as a demo to give to someone else. However, Summer's erotic moans and groans impressed Moroder so much that he persuaded her to release it as her own song, and "Love to Love You" became a moderate hit in the Netherlands.
In an interview in 1976, Summer responded to a number of questions that she claimed she'd been asked about the process of recording the song: "Everyone's asking, 'Were you alone in the studio?' Yes, I was alone in the studio. 'Did you touch yourself?' Yes, well, actually I had my hand on my knee. 'Did you fantasize on anything?' Yes, on my handsome boyfriend Peter."[2]
A tape of the song was sent to Casablanca Records president Neil Bogart in the US, and he played it at a party at his home. Impressed with the track, Bogart continued to play it over and over all night. He later contacted Moroder and suggested that he make the track longer - possibly as long as 20 minutes. However, Summer again had reservations; she was not sure of all of the lyrics. Nevertheless, she imagined herself as an actress (namely Marilyn Monroe)[3] playing the part of someone in sexual ecstasy. The studio lights were dimmed so that Summer was more or less in complete darkness as she lay on the floor.
The final recording lasted over 16 minutes, and according to the BBC, contained 23 "orgasms".[3] By that point, the song was renamed "Love to Love You Baby". It took up the entire first side of the album of the same name, and edited versions were also found on 7" vinyl.
Originally released in November 1975, the song became an international disco smash. In the US, it became Summer's first US Top 40 hit, spending two weeks at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on February 7 and 14, 1976,[4] being held off the number one spot by Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" and logged four weeks atop the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart,[5] as well number three on the Billboard Hot Soul Singles chart.[6]
In the UK, upon release in January 1976, the song reached #4[7] on the UK Singles Chart in spite of the BBC's initial refusal to promote it. They also refused to play it. As a result of the success of the song, Summer would be named "the first lady of love," which labeled her with a sexually oriented, fantasy image from which she would struggle to free herself.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame named the song one of the 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll in 1995.
VH1 placed "Love to Love You Baby" at number 63 in their list of 100 Greatest Dance Songs in 2000.[8]
Slant Magazine ranked the song 10th in its 100 Greatest Dance Songs in 2006.[9]
According to Peter Shapiro, a freelance British music journalist, the song was marked by "little more than Donna Summer simulating an orgasm over a background of blaxploitation cymbals, wah-wah guitars, a funky-butt clarinet riff, and some synth chimes." He continued, "Love to Love You Baby" [...] was extended into a seventeen-minute minisymphony at the behest of Casablanca Records chief Neil Bogart, who wanted a soundtrack for his sexual exploits. The song reached number two in the American charts and was largely responsible for the development of the twelve inch single."[10]
Donna Summer was forced to stop performing "Love to Love You" live when, "Riots broke out [...] [She] was in a tent in Italy, 5,000 men, almost no women, and was doing 'Love to Love You, Baby,' fairly scantily clad, and the guys got so wrapped up that they began to push the stage back. And [she] had to run off the stage, to [her] trailer out the back. And they came to the trailer and started to rock it. [She] just thought, 'I'm going to die today, I'm not going to get out of here.' It's not the kind of song you just want to throw out there."[11]
Note: This original release (without the "Baby" in the title) ran for just over 3 minutes and 20 seconds.This version was integrated into the 16-minute version found on the album. All subsequent international releaseseither contained a new edit of the full album version (lasting just under five minutes) or the original version(but still adding "Baby" to the title). In some cases (for example, the United States), both versions were found
on different sides of the record.
Note: The word "Baby" appears on the sleeve but not the label.
Note: This Dutch re-release was issued shortly after the song became a hit internationally, with "Baby" being added to the title.
Following the dance chart success of the Patrick Cowley remix of Summer's "I Feel Love" in 1982, Casablanca Records/PolyGram re-issued her first hit single "Love to Love You Baby". However, the single failed to make an impact on the charts the second time around, and it would be the label's final single re-release of tracks from the Donna Summer back catalog in the 1980s. In 1984, Casablanca Records was closed by PolyGram.
Note: The "Come On Over to My Place Version" is in fact the original full-length album version.
| Chart (1975–1976) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australia (Kent Music Report)[12] | 4 |
| France (SNEP)[13] | 16 |
| Italy (Musica e dischi)[14] | 11 |
| Portugal (Musica & Som)[15] | 4 |
| Spain (Promusicae)[16] | 6 |
| US Hot Soul Singles (Billboard)[17] | 3 |
| Chart (1976) | Rank |
|---|---|
| Australia (Kent Music Report)[18] | 50 |
| Canada Top Singles (RPM)[19] | 25 |
| UK Singles (OCC)[20] | 61 |
| US Billboard Hot 100[21] | 41 |
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