I Want to Know What Love Is by Foreigner

I Want to Know What Love Is is a power ballad by Foreigner, credited to guitarist Mick Jones and released by Atlantic Records on November 21, 1984, as the lead single from the band's fifth album, Agent Provocateur. It reached number one on the UK Singles Chart in January 1985 and on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1985. It is the band's only pop number one in either country.

Jones has described the song as coming to him at three in the morning. He has called it "a gift that was sent through me" and said he felt something bigger than himself behind it. He has also said it started from his own failed relationships and grew into a more universal feeling as the work went on. During the recording, he said, he realized he had written something close to a spiritual song.

The writing credit has been argued over for years. Lou Gramm, the band's singer, says he contributed to the song and should share the credit. Jones has put Gramm's part at about 5 percent, and Gramm has put it at 35 percent or more. Rick Wills, the bassist at the time, has said Jones wrote it alone. Gramm also said Jones was reluctant to let him hear the first rough version, and in Gramm's view the song held things in Jones's life that Jones had not worked out.

Gramm had other doubts. Most earlier Foreigner songs were joint Jones and Gramm compositions. Gramm worried that a big ballad would pull a rock band toward adult contemporary radio and away from the sound that made Foreigner's name on records like Juke Box Hero and Hot Blooded.

Jones and Alex Sadkin produced the song in December 1983, and Frank Filipetti mixed it. Gramm sang lead, Wills played bass, and Dennis Elliott played drums, with Jones on keyboards and backing vocals. Tom Bailey of the Thompson Twins added synthesizers. Jennifer Holliday, who had won a Tony Award for Dreamgirls, sang backing vocals and helped arrange them.

The New Jersey Mass Choir, part of the Gospel Music Workshop of America, sang the gospel section that closes the song. Jones brought about 30 of its singers into the studio. He said the first takes were "still a bit tentative." The singers then held hands and said the Lord's Prayer together, and after that they recorded their part in one take. Jones has said he was in tears, partly because his parents were in the studio that day.

Jones has said he played the finished track for Ahmet Ertegun, the head of Atlantic Records, and that Ertegun was crying by the end of the first chorus.

The single came out in time for the holiday season. On January 15, 1985, it replaced Band Aid's Do They Know It's Christmas? at number one in Britain and stayed there for three weeks. On February 2, 1985, it knocked Madonna's Like a Virgin off the top of the Billboard Hot 100. It also went to number one in Australia, where it stayed five weeks, as well as in Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway and Sweden. It finished 1985 at number four on the Billboard year-end chart. The B-side was Street Thunder, an instrumental from the album written as a marathon theme for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Brian Gibson directed the video, and the choir appears in it. In 2004 Rolling Stone placed the song at number 476 on its list of the greatest songs of all time. It is certified platinum in the US and was certified double platinum in the UK in 2023.

The choir released its own version in 1985, which reached number 37 on the Billboard black singles chart. Tina Arena recorded it in 1998 with Jones as producer, and he wrote a new bridge for her version. Wynonna Judd released a cover in 2004 that reached number 14 on the US adult contemporary chart. Mariah Carey's 2009 version reached number 60 on the Hot 100, but in Brazil it topped the airplay chart for 27 weeks in a row, helped by its use in the telenovela Viver a Vida. Foreigner recorded it again in 2016 with Nate Ruess, and in 2025 the band released a Spanish version, Quiero Saber Si es Amor, with singer Luis Maldonado and guest Joy Huerta.

Jones has said he still gets letters from people who found comfort in the song during hard times. The key and BPM of I Want to Know What Love Is are on its Song IQ page.