Whitesnake were certainly no strangers to the ballad format by the time they became superstars in 1987. But “Is This Love” represented something different for them. It was a ballad that had much more of a pop sheen to it than previous bluesy outings like “Crying in the Rain” and “Here I Go Again,” ballads that had anthemic qualities. Both of those songs were reworked in the mid- to late 1980s for the band’s two multi-platinum albums Whitesnake and Slip of the Tongue.
Videos by American Songwriter
Frontman and lyricist David Coverdale has admitted that he felt trepidation about releasing “Is This Love” as a single back in 1987. The keyboards, in particular, made the song sound much poppier than the classic organ sounds the original had. But those were delivered by master keyboardist Jon Lord, who had left to rejoin the reunited Deep Purple.
If You Can’t Beat ‘Em…
Let’s face it, Whitesnake was a full-on makeover for the British group—from a blues-based ‘70s rock band to a bluesy, but far more commercial group that fit in with the guitar-shredding, hair-teasing times. None of the classic line-up beyond Coverdale and bassist Neil Murray survived the transition. Guitarist John Sykes had first appeared on the reworked Slide It In for the U.S. market, and would co-write all but two songs with Coverdale on Whitesnake. Former Journey drummer Aynsley Dunbar and session keyboardist Don Airey came in to record on the album as well. But after various rather chaotic circumstances arose, including a delay in recording Coverdale’s vocals due to a sinus infection, the singer replaced the entire band again with new members after the album was in the can and before Whitesnake’s world tour.
But back to the song at hand. The truth of the matter is that the hit ballad “Is This Love” was never intended for Whitesnake to begin with.
[RELATED: Whitesnake Is Not Hair Metal (and Here Are 10 Underrated Cuts to Prove It)]
Not So Fast
“Actually, the original idea was for Tina Turner,” Coverdale revealed on Whitesnake’s YouTube channel in 2022. “My friends and associates at EMI Records were looking for songs to follow up Tina’s astonishing success story. The album with ‘What’s Love Got to Do With It’ was huge. Global. And they were looking for songs, and they knew I was going away to do the old correlation of song ideas and said, ‘If you come up with anything that you think might be good for Tina’—because they knew I was a huge fan—‘let us know.’”
Coverdale rented a villa in the south of France and worked there with Sykes. They kept different hours—Coverdale was up during the day, Sykes enjoyed working at night. “He’d stagger out of his room to get coffee as I was tinkering away and now turning the volume up about four in the afternoon,” said Coverdale. “And he said, ‘Oh, what’s that? That’s nice.’ I said, ‘It’s not for us, it’s for Tina Turner.’”
After Sykes got his coffee, he started playing some ideas on guitar, and the whole song gelled in a new way. “It was just this organic thing, these ideas just fed…really beautiful things that I wouldn’t have come up with,” Coverdale recalled. “Maybe John wouldn’t have come up with the chords, but the embellishments were just part of the whole package of the song. When Geffen heard it, I said, ‘No, this is for Tina Turner.’ ‘No, it’s not.’ And it’s one of the biggest songs that we have.”
“A Good Sonic Hug”
“Is This Love” would become Whitesnake’s second-highest-charting single ever, hitting No. 2 on the Hot 100 in America. (The revamped “Here I Go Again” went to No. 1.) The lyrics about romantic longing and regret resonated with a good many fans.
I should have known better than to let you go alone
It’s times like these I can’t make it on my own
Wasted days and sleepless nights
And I can’t wait to see you again
I find I spend my time waiting on your call
How can I tell you, babe, my back’s against the wall
I need you by my side to tell me it’s all right
‘Cause I don’t think I can take any more
The video featured band performances intercut with sexy scenes between Coverdale and his future wife (and Whitesnake video vixen) Tawny Kitaen. It certainly was the right song for the band at the right time, even if it did ruffle the feathers of longtime followers who understandably rolled their eyes at this poppy turn of events. Yet modern listeners love it still, with over 200 million YouTube views and 280 million Spotify streams at the time of this writing.
“Whenever we play really big heavy metal festivals around the world, I’m going, ‘Should we do it?’” Coverdale said on YouTube. “Man, everybody’s hugging because usually by that time of the day people need a good sonic hug, so we’re only too happy to oblige. I’m sorry, Tina. I would still loved to have heard her sing it. Because if you were to imagine it in your mind’s ear, she would do a superb job on it.”
Photo by Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images
