ex foreigner singer Lou Gram denounced his former teammates, Mick Jonesclaiming that the guitarist completely owns the song “I want to know what love is” Out of “greed”.
“I don’t get any credit for ‘I want to know what love is,'” Graham explained in an appearance Meetinginsisting that he played a major role in the song’s creation.
“[Jones’] Home was about 15 minutes away from mine,” Graham recalls. “So I would drive to his house and we would write that song. Sometimes it’s just magic and then we creatively bump into something we can’t get to the next point. So we pretty much had to put the song on hold for a few weeks and then come back. I feel like we’ve gone to great lengths to make this song what it is. “
Graham went on to point out that he and Jones had a convention: At the end of the album, they would “make a list of songs” and determine the percentage ownership of each track based on each musician’s contribution.They went through this process before 1984 proxy provocateurwhen the topic of “I want to know what love is” came.
“When it came time to decide what the percentage was, I wrote what I thought it should be, and he wrote what he thought it should be. I think I wrote 65-35 — 35 for me, 65 for him,” Guerra said. Mu recalled. “Then I opened that little piece of paper [had] his thoughts [the correct split] Yes, he wrote 95-5. I was so shocked and devastated that he would think I had barely any contribution to that song. “
According to Gram, the dissent about “I wonder what love is” “leaves a wedge between us, and that’s where the end begins.”
“I should get 25 [percent] Just for vocal performances,” the singer thought. “All I can think of is greed. This is a great song. We all knew it was going to be a smash. This is his chance to step on me. You know what I told him after 95-5? I said, “Five, Mick?” I said, ‘You should keep it. he made it. He didn’t say, ‘No, Lou. Please. Let’s fix it. I said, “After all the work I’ve done on this song, give me five percent?” I said, ‘You should keep it. And he said nothing. He just kept it all. Did you know that song brought in millions? “
Listen to “I Want to Know What Love Is”
Released as a single in November ’84, “I Want to Know What Love Is” became the only number one song on Foreigner’s impressive catalog. Gramm left the band in 1990 to focus on his solo career. He will return in 1992 and leave again in 2003.
Jones and Graham were inducted into the Composers Hall of Fame together in 2013.At the time, Jones was in a Conversation with UCR.
“There’s no real way,” the guitarist explained. “He’ll come up with an idea, or I’ll come up with an idea, and we’ll go back and forth with it to see how it works for us, and then if something sounds like potential, we’ll just focus on trying it out and getting it done. “
During the same conversation, Jones spoke directly about “I wonder what love is,” revealing how the inspiration came about in the first place.
“I just woke up late. I met someone who became my wife, and basically, I think I walked into the bedroom around two in the morning and I said, ‘I have this great idea.’ I had the prelude and the first two of the title. chords,” Jones recalled. “She said, ‘Well, what’s it called?’ I said, ‘Well, it’s called ‘I want to know what love is’. She looked at me and said, ‘You want to know what love means? We are getting married! ” [Laughs] “Don’t you know what love is?” So it’s funny. “
Alien Album Chart
It’s hard to imagine rock radio without a string of hits like Foreigner stripped off in the ’70s and ’80s.
