Love Hurts (ISWC T-072.287.071-4 BMI, GEMA, JASRAC) is the title of a musical composition penned solely by American songwriter Boudleaux Bryant (1920-1987) in Nashville, Tennessee on February 25, 1960 and published by Acuff-Rose Music (BMI) on August 30th of that year. It is a remarkable standout among the dizzying catalog of hit songs authored by Bryant and his wife Felice during their legendary career as a songwriting team that spanned over three decades, and was a chart-topping hit for numerous artists that recorded it. Found in many music critics' "greatest songs of all time" lists and referred to as "one of rock's most devastating tales of heartbreak" by Rolling Stone magazine, it was used as the title of several books and compilation albums about the Bryants, and its simple and reflective lyrics about a universal human experience combined with an unforgettable melody makes it a significant work in the history of contemporary music.
Across the expansive pantheon of hit pop songs worldwide, regardless of genre or language, you can reduce most themes down to two extremes of one emotion: the ecstasy of love and the anguish of heartbreak. Most hit songs are love songs of one sort or another, and indeed many are variations on this bipolar meme. The majority of the Bryants' most popular works fit within this frame, including Bye Bye, Love, Sleepless Nights, and All I Have To Do Is Dream. But Love Hurts is arguably the pinnacle of their expression of the grief that can accompany love's tragically unrequited or unrequiteable conclusion, insomuch as it is a repudiation of love itself.
First recorded by The Everly Brothers for their album A Date with the Everly Brothers and released in October 1960, its status as a single was actually usurped by the great Roy Orbison in March 1961 as a B-side to Running Scared, an international hit that charted as a "double A-side" in Australia, both sides peaking at number five. Recorded by Orbison at RCA Studio B in Nashville on February 27, 1961 and released as a 45 RPM on the Monument Records label, it sold over one million copies in the United States alone. Roy performed masterful justice to this song as only he could, featuring the orchestral accompaniment typical of his oeuvre. According to secondhandsongs.com, it has been recorded by at least 180 different artists, and ranks as the 23rd most-covered work of all works released in 1960.
Flash forward about fifteen years, and most people my age or younger recognize this song as a hit power ballad performed by the band Nazareth. Released as the B-side to their single Hair of the Dog in the US on November 8, 1974, once again the flip side became a hit single, reaching number eight on Billboard Magazine's Hot 100 in early 1976. It remains a staple of classic rock radio airplay to this day, and is indisputably the most popular version of the song ever recorded. It also became an international hit, charting at number one in Norway, Canada, Belgium, South Africa, and the Netherlands, and reaching number fifteen in the UK as part of the band's "Hot Tracks" EP in 1977. Norwegians loved this rendition in a special way, charting 61 weeks in total with 14 weeks at number one, making it the top-selling single of all time in their country.
If you haven't heard other covers of this song besides the one Nazareth made famous, you may not know that they changed one word in their 1975 re-recording of the song that appears as track eight on side two of the album Hair of the Dog, the one that is most commonly played on radio. Instead of Boudleaux's original line "love is like a stove, burns you when it's hot" they substituted "love is like a flame, burns you when it's hot". The Everly Brothers and Roy Orbison renditions are true to the original lyrics, but many (though not all) of the covers that followed Nazareth's use their altered lyrics due to the fact that these are the most recognizable to the majority of listeners.
On that note, notable covers of this song have been recorded and/or performed by Cher, Rod Stewart, Heart, L.A. Guns, Grandaddy, Joan Jett, Norah Jones/Keith Richards, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Sinéad O'Connor, Juice Newton (this one was better than I was expecting), Don McLean, and Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris, a favorite of the Bryant's youngest son Del who served as CEO of BMI Music for many years. Love Hurts is now beloved by four generations of artists and fans alike, and its popularity seems eternal.
Sources:
https://secondhandsongs.com/work/2803/versions
https://americansongwriter.com/felice-and-boudleaux-bryant-love-hurts-and-songs-pay-the-bills
https://www.rollingstone.com/interactive/lists-100-greatest-songwriters/#felice-and-boudleaux-bryant