Paul Stanley Originally Wrote This Song for KISS Before It Was Recorded by Ronnie Spector, Cher, and Desmond Child

When working on KISS‘s fourteenth album, Crazy Nights, Paul Stanley and producer and songwriter Desmond Child co-wrote three tracks that made it onto the album—”Bang Bang You,” “My Way,” and “Reason to Live.” The two first started working together after their first meeting in 1977, and co-wrote “The Fight” for Child’s group Rouge’s 1979 self-titled debut. Shortly after, both collaborated again on KISS’s 1979 hit “I Was Made For Loving You.”

During their Crazy Nights writing sessions, Stanley and Child also came up with another song that KISS never recorded, “Love on a Rooftop.”

The song resurfaced when Ronnie Spector was working on her second solo album, and first release in seven years, Unfinished Business. On the album, the former Ronette reunited with her “Take Me Home Tonight/Be My Baby” partner, Eddie Money, for another duet, “Who Can Sleep.” The Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs also shared backing vocals on a song called “Dangerous.”

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[RELATED: Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons Talk Songwriting With American Songwriter]

“Love on a Rooftop,” the story of a love broken down by busy lives, also made its way onto Spector’s album, with additional writing credit by Diane Warren, and featured former KISS guitarist Bruce Kulick.

We used to talk forever on a dime
Now we live together, never find the time
We used to walk as lovers on the sand
Now we’re workin’ full-time on our lifetime plan

We never stop to see the moon at night
We’re just too busy leadin’ complicated lives

Woah, woah, woah
I remember love on a rooftop
Couldn’t make the love stop
We were givin’ all that we got
Woah, woah, woah

Cher and Desmond Child Covers

In 1989, Cher covered “Love on a Rooftop” on her nineteenth album, Heart of Stone, which also featured her hit “If I Could Turn Back Time.” Just two years later, Child, who co-produced Cher’s Heart of Stone, also took a crack at “Love on the Rooftop” on his 1991 album, and only solo release, Discipline.

Along with Child’s collaborations with Stanley, he also wrote several songs with Warren, including several for Cher, including her 1989 hit “Just Like Jesse James” and Michael Bolton’s hit “How Can We Be Lovers? from the same year, along with “Save Up All Your Tears” for Bonnie Tyler, “Bed of Nails” by Alice Cooper, Bon Jovi’s “Wild is the Wind,” and Ratt’s “One Step Away.”

“I love that I connected the two of them [Warren and Child] together, and that was a dynamo,” Stanley told American Songwriter in 2023. “Talk about passion. When you lose that passion, you’ll lose your quality. You lose your excitement.”

Stanley added, “Diane—she’s a wonder. And every day is an exciting one for her in terms of creativity. That’s the way it should be. If it’s not songwriting, find another outlet. Find something that excites you.”

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