“The song was an expression of my tempestuous private life. This stuff is real!”: The emotional ’80s ballad that’s just reached one billion streams

Mick Jones on stage in 1985
(Image credit: Getty Images/Gary Gershoff)

“After writing the first three chords, I knew something was happening,” Mick Jones recalled of the night in 1984 when he wrote the song that gave his band Foreigner their biggest hit.

“I was writing in London at the time,” Jones said, “and wrote the introduction very late at night. It came to me very quickly, as some of the great songs usually do.”

The song was I Want To Know What Love Is. It would become a No.1 hit on both sides of the Atlantic. And it has now surpassed one billion streams on Spotify - placing Foreigner among an elite group of heritage acts in Spotify’s Billions Club alongside The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Queen and AC/DC.

In a new statement, guitarist Jones comments: “We’re truly honoured to be included in Spotify’s Billions Club. This achievement is a testament to the lasting power of I Want To Know What Love Is and the incredible support from our fans around the world. As we look ahead to our 50th anniversary, this is a reminder of how much our music has meant to so many people over the years.”

In an interview with Classic Rock, Jones recalled how the song came to him as he sat at a keyboard in his home studio in London.

“I always worked late at night, when everybody left and the phone stopped ringing,” he said. “I Want To Know What Love Is came up at three in the morning sometime in 1984.

“I don’t know where it came from. I consider it a gift that was sent through me. I think there was something bigger than me behind it. I’d say it was probably written entirely by a higher force.

“The song was an expression of my tempestuous private life over the three years before. I’d been through a divorce, and met someone else who I was going to marry. There’d been turmoil in the band through the huge pressure of selling millions of albums, and me and Lou [Gramm, Foreigner singer] were entering a cold-war situation. So it was an emotional time that stirred up a lot of things.

He continued: “That night I only managed the title, the opening chords and the chorus, but that was enough to make me go into the bedroom where my soon-to-be wife was asleep and tell her I had an idea for a song called I Want To Know What Love Is. She just fixed me with this strange look and said: ‘What do you mean? Don’t you already know what love is?’

“I dragged her into the studio to hear it, which must say something. You always know when you’ve got something strong, and this song definitely moved me.”

In 2000, Jones explained how the song grew musically and lyrically.

“It started out as more of a personal thing and then took on a life of its own and begged to be more universal,” he said. “Gradually, as it developed, I took it in that direction. Then the idea came to perhaps have Lou sing a duet with somebody on it, somebody like Aretha Franklin, to bring out the spiritual side of it.

"We ended up working with the New Jersey Mass Choir, and that was a revelation. They’d never recorded in a studio before and suddenly I was in the studio with 30 singers; I’d never handled that sort of choir before either. I remember we all got together in a circle and said the Lord’s Prayer before we recorded that track. From then on the song opened up and became truly spiritual and universal.”

Speaking to Classic Rock, Jones also revealed how this song had a powerful effect on Ahmet Ertegün, president of Foreigner’s record label Atlantic.

“Ahmet Ertegün had always been my mentor,” he said. “I invited him down to the studio one night, closed the door and said: ‘Look, I just want to play you one song and hear what you think.’

“This is somebody who discovered Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin, so his opinion was quite important. So we sat there and listened, and after the first chorus I looked over in his direction and tears were rolling down his cheeks. I thought: ‘My God! I’ve done it!’ He was away with the music.”

Foreigner - I Want To Know What Love Is (Official Music Video) - YouTube Foreigner - I Want To Know What Love Is (Official Music Video) - YouTube
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Jones later told Outlaw magazine how he used to worry about putting too much of his personal life into his songs.

“I don’t talk about that too much,” he said. “The names remain anonymous. And yeah, I used to be embarrassed about it sometimes. But this stuff is real. You meet people in your life that have an effect on you.

“I’ve been married three times. I’ve been thought that pain and drama. There’s a story to tell about it. And a lot of people can relate to that.”

A billion streams is proof of that.

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Paul Elliott
Guitars Editor

Paul Elliott has worked for leading music titles since 1985, including Sounds, Kerrang!, MOJO and Q. He is the author of several books including the first biography of Guns N’ Roses and the autobiography of bodyguard-to-the-stars Danny Francis. He has written liner notes for classic album reissues by artists such as Def Leppard, Thin Lizzy and Kiss. He lives in Bath - of which David Coverdale recently said: “How very Roman of you!”