"Love Is All Around" is a song composed by Reg Presley and originally performed in 1967 by Presley's band, The Troggs, featuring a string quartet and a 'tick tock' sound on percussion, in D-major. Purportedly inspired by a television transmission of the Joy Strings Salvation Army band's "Love That's All Around",[1][2]the song was first released as a single in the UK in October 1967. On the UK Singles Chart top 50, the record debuted at No.50 on 18 October 1967 (using the Wednesday date system)[3] (date derived from 21 October 1967[4] and 28 October 1967[5]), peaked at No.5 on 22 November 1967 (using the Wednesday date system)[6] (date derived from 25 November 1967[7]), and appeared 15 straight times. On the US Billboard Hot 100, the record entered at No.98 on 24 February 1968, peaked at No.7 on 18 May 1968, and spent a total of 16 weeks on the chart.
"Love Is All Around" has been covered by numerous artists, including R.E.M., with whom the Troggs subsequently recorded their 1992 comeback albumAthens Andover. R.E.M.'s cover was a B-side on their 1991 "Radio Song" single, and they also played it during their first appearance at MTV's Unpluggedseries that same year. Wet Wet Wet's cover, for the soundtrack to the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral, was an international hit and spent 15 weeks at number one in the UK Singles Chart.
Contents[]
Charts[edit][]
| Chart (1967/1968) | Peak
position |
|---|---|
| UK Singles Chart | 5 |
| US Billboard Hot 100 | 7 |
Wet Wet Wet version[edit][]
| "Love Is All Around" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [1] | ||||
| Single by Wet Wet Wet | ||||
| from the album Four Weddings and a Funeral and Picture This | ||||
| Released | 9 May 1994 | |||
| Recorded | 1994 | |||
| Genre | Soft rock | |||
| Label | PolyGram/Records Service | |||
| Writer(s) | Reg Presley | |||
| Producer(s) | Graeme Clark | |||
| Wet Wet Wet singles chronology | ||||
| ||||
Wet Wet Wet's version of "Love Is All Around", which has a different introduction from The Troggs' version, was recorded in B-flat-major on 4 January 1994 and released on 9 May 1994. It topped the UK Singles Chart after just under three weeks and, fueled by its appearance in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral,[8] remained there for 15 consecutive weeks, the second longest stay at the top of that chart to date (beaten only by "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You" by Bryan Adams, which topped the chart for 16 weeks). All told, the song spent 37 weeks on the Top 75 survey. As of November 2011, the song had sold 1,850,000 copies in the United Kingdom, making it the tenth best-selling single of all time.[9] "We did everybody's head in the summer of 1994," commented the band's frontman, Marti Pellow, exactly a decade later. This led to some radio stations banning the song. The band themselves eventually took the decision to delete the record from sale.[10] Nevertheless, Pellow said, "I still think it's a brilliant record. Its strength is its sheer simplicity. Any band would give their eye teeth to have a hit record like that. I'm very proud of it."[11] "Love Is All Around" is the number one song in VH1 2013 The Ultimate Movie Soundtrack: Top 100.
Reg Presley famously spent some of the proceeds, which he received for composing the song, on crop circle research.[12]
Pellow recorded his own version of the song for inclusion on his 2002 album Marti Pellow Sings the Hits of Wet Wet Wet & Smile.
Track listings[edit][]
- CD 1
- "Love Is All Around"
- "I Can Give You Everything" (7" Arthur Baker soul remix)
- "Ain't No Stoppin'/Le Freak"
- CD 2 Limited Edition Digi Pack
- "Love Is All Around"
- "Is This Love?" (live)
- "Love Is All Around" (TV mix)
- "I Can Give You Everything" (12" house mix)
- MC
- "Love Is All Around"
- "I Can Give You Everything" (7" Arthur Baker soul remix)
- 7"
- "Love Is All Around"
- "I Can Give You Everything" (7" Arthur Baker remix)
R.E.M. connection[edit][]
The employment of film projection onto blank cards in the song's video is reminiscent of R.E.M.'s "Radio Song" video, shot three years earlier. Regarding the Wets' recording of the song, R.E.M.'s Peter Bucksaid, "People say they got the idea to do it from seeing us play - and I hope so, because it made Reg a million pounds or something. It's a great song. I thought it was a fine version."[13]
"I heard their live version - they did it on TV once - and [Marti Pellow] sang it with the same little melody that I threw in there, which was kind of nice," added Mike Mills. "That thing like uh-uh-uh-urrr at the end. That doesn't exist on the original version."[13] "Oh, okay. I thought you meant bah---bah-bah--bah--bah---bah--bah---bah," concluded Michael Stipe,[13] recalling his own vocalization on the R.E.M. version. Otherwise the R.E.M. version is a mandolin-accentuated note-for-note cover (except that the introduction is shorter and the conclusion has no fade) of The Troggs' version, even to the point of being in the same key of D-major.
Introducing the R.E.M. version live at the Shocking Club in Milan, Italy, on 22 March 1991, Stipe claimed "this song was written in the late 1880s in the small town in Sicily called Catania; it was first performed during the psychedelic movement there, which occurred right around the turn of the century". Such a claim may be interesting, and would have been news to Reg Presley, but corroboration for it is, so far, apparently unknown. Bill Davidson wrote the aforementioned Joy Strings composition in 1966, so Stipe's claim couldn't refer to it either.
Slovenian-language adaptation[edit][]
A Slovenian adaptation of Wet Wet Wet version was also recorded, with the lyrics in Slovenian language, by the Slovenian pop band Čuki, as Vsepovsod ljubezen (Slovenian literally for Love everywhere), soon after the original Wet Wet Wet version was released.
Čuki also released a video for their adaptation of the song, which, just like the Wet Wet Wet video, features the same technique of film projection onto blank cards.
Christmas song[edit][]
A parody of the song appears as a central theme in the British Christmas/romantic comedy Love Actually (2003), which, like Four Weddings and a Funeral, was written by Richard Curtis. On the film's DVD commentary track, Curtis says that after the success of the Wet Wet Wet version, he "couldn't think of a funnier way to start the film than by actually making [the British public] listen to the same song again." In the movie, a burned-out rock star character, Billy Mack (played by Bill Nighy), changes the lyrics of the classic "Love Is All Around" to "Christmas Is All Around" and "come on and let it show" to "come on and let it snow" in what he freely admits is a cheap attempt to reach the Christmas number one spot, thus achieving a comeback "at any price". The Christmas version appears periodically throughout the movie, with frequent references made to its being "crap". The song is featured on the film's soundtrack album, which in 2004 reached Billboard's Top 40 and ranked #2 on the soundtrack album chart. It also achieved gold record status in Mexico and Australia.
Other cover versions and film uses[edit][]
Prior to achieving international success with their single These Eyes, Love is All Around was covered by The Guess Who? circa 1967/1968, and is available on compilation album, This Time Long Ago.[14]The song was also covered by Lotta Engbergs orkester as "Du ger mig av din kärlek" with Swedish lyrics written by Peter Stedt in 1994.[15] The song appeared in "Get Real 1998" directed by Simon Shore, screenplay by Patrick Wilde.[16]
Charts[edit][]
Peak positions[edit][]
|
Year-end charts[edit][]
Certifications[edit][]
|