Everlasting Love - Overview

Overview

The original version of "Everlasting Love" was recorded in Nashville by Robert Knight, whose producers Buzz Cason and Mac Gayden aimed to record him in a Motown style with especial reference to the Four Tops and the Temptations. Cason would recall how he and Gayden wrote "Everlasting Love" to serve as B-side for a song entitled "The Weeper", which they were to record with Knight. The night before the recording session for "The Weeper", Gayden stopped by Cason's home and, according to Cason, "as usual brought several melodies, riffs and grooves to work on", two of whose hit potential particularly struck Cason, who had Gayden combine these ideas into one melody. The writing session was abbreviated as Gayden had to go home for supper; Cason assured his partner: "I'll put some kind of lyric to it...Neither of us was too concerned as just knew that 'The Weeper' would be the hit of the session." Cason believes he may have drawn the phrase "everlasting love" from the biblical verse Jeremiah 31.3 which begins: "Yea, I have loved you with an everlasting love".

Ultimately "Everlasting Love" was released as an A-side for Knight and reached #13 in 1967. Subsequently the song has reached the U.S. Top 40 three times, most successfully by Carl Carlton, who peaked at #6 in 1974, with more moderate success for remakes by Rex Smith and Rachel Sweet (#32/ 1981) and Gloria Estefan (#27/ 1995). Thus, "Everlasting Love" is one of two songs (the other being "The Way You Do the Things You Do") to become a Top 40 hit in the 1960s, '70s, '80s and '90s.

In the UK, versions of "Everlasting Love" have appeared in the Top 40 in every decade between 1960 and 2010, always—with the exception of the 1980s—reaching the Top 20. In 1968 Love Affair took the song to #1. The Robert Knight original had peaked at #40 in 1968, but was re-issued in 1974 and reached #19. In 1981, a duet version with Rex Smith and Rachel Sweet hit #35. "Everlasting Love" reached the UK Top 20 three times in the 1990s with versions by Worlds Apart (#20/ 1993), Gloria Estefan (#19/ 1995) and, most successfully, with a charity single by the Cast from Casualty that reached #5 in 1998. In 2004 Jamie Cullum reached #20 with his version.

In 1987 the rendition of "Everlasting Love" by Sandra reached at least the Top 20 in at least eight territories, going Top 10 in four. Her version also reached UK #45 in 1988, affording "Everlasting Love" its second UK Top 50 incarnation of the decade. The song has also charted internationally via its renditions by Love Affair, Rex Smith and Rachel Sweet and Worlds Apart.

As early as 1968 "Everlasting Love" was remade for the C&W market by Hank Locklin, who charted at #57. Narvel Felts would make the song a major C&W hit in 1979, reaching #14 on the Billboard C&W chart; a concurrent remake by Louise Mandrell peaked at #69 C&W.

Just prior to the release of Jamie Cullum's 2004 version, Buzz Cason theorized on his composition's appeal: "It's an uplifting song, with a real positive feeling, and it's danceable. I think people get a lift from it. When it comes to that chorus it just really lets go." (Nashville Times Daily 28 October 2004)