How a Painful Breakup Led to a 1966 No. 1 Hit Co-Written by a Duo That Never Wrote Together Again

To quote the great Talking Heads frontman David Byrne: “Say something once, why say it again?” In 1966, Andrew Wright and Calvin Lewis lived out this “Psycho Killer” sentiment when they joined forces to write one hit song—just one. The track skyrocketed to the top of the charts and gave American soul singer Percy Sledge a signature tune. And we suppose that was enough for the short-lived songwriting duo.

Sledge’s future hit single was the pained ballad, “When A Man Loves A Woman”. (Younger readers or blue-eyed soul fans might also recognize this as a Michael Bolton tune.) However, Sledge was the first to record the song and cement it into the Muscle Shoals musical canon that comes from this particular region of northern Alabama.

The exact origins of “When A Man Loves A Woman” vary depending on who you ask. While Wright and Lewis received credit as the primary songwriters, Sledge often recounted a version in which he came up with the song’s title and subject matter. At the very least, he certainly sang it as he wrote it.

“When A Man Loves A Woman” Sounds Like It’s Fresh From a Breakup

There’s a reason why Percy Sledge’s 1966 hit, “When A Man Loves A Woman”, climbed to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. Love—especially the kind that hurts—is a universal subject for popular songs. And indeed, it’s hard to find a vocal performance that carries this kind of yearning, intensity, anguish, and passion as Sledge’s ballad. “When a man loves a woman / can’t keep his mind on nothin’ else / He’d trade the world / for the good thing he’s found,” Sledge begins. “If she is bad, he can’t see it / She can do no wrong.”

According to Sledge, he helped Wright and Lewis finish what would become “When A Man Loves A Woman” with real-life experience. Per CBS News, Sledge’s then-girlfriend had just broken up with him to pursue a modeling career. Around the same time, his construction job laid him off, too.

With this context in mind, one can easily hear how authentic the desperation in Sledge’s voice really was. In fact, one of the common retellings of the song’s history is that Sledge was so appreciative of the opportunity to wail and lament that he offered full songwriting credit to Wright and Lewis.

For whatever it’s worth, these two one-off songwriters never collaborated again. “When A Man Loves A Woman” was their only legacy, and it was certainly a good one. Even Michael Bolton’s subsequent cover of the ballad hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, proving that the world wasn’t done listening to the heartfelt track.

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