Everlasting Love

I well remember hearing the 1967 original version of "Everlasting Love" by Robert Knight for the first time through the 4" speaker of the tube powered GE tabletop AM radio that I got from my grandmother. This is one of those songs that has a lot of drama created by musical tension. It's got the same feel as the intro to "Reach Out" by the Four Tops, which may have inspired the intro to this tune. I'll bet this record was cut live with everyone in the same room, like they often did back then. Without ProTools.

"Everlasting Love" made its next appearance on the charts with a discofied version by Carl Carlton in 1974. You may also remember Carlton as the perpetrator of the 1982 hit, "She's a Bad Mama-Jama". The song has since reached the U.S. Top 40 twice more, with more moderate success for remakes by Rex Smith and Rachel Sweet (#32 in 1981) and Gloria Estefan (#27 in 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.

But there's one other excellent version that didn't chart at all.

In 1988, U2 released a concert documentary film, "Rattle & Hum", along with an accompanying soundtrack album. As the band had done previously, for each single that was released from the album, there were 2 or 3 spare tracks included that were recorded during the album sessions, but not included on the album proper. These popular B-sides helped sell the singles. One of the extra tracks on the cd single for "All I Want Is You" is a scorching take of "Everlasting Love" that by all rights, should have been on the album and in the film, but was not used, for whatever reason.

Obviously, this should be played at an appropriate volume. Enjoy!

 

There is a metric ton of career-spanning recordings from U2 available at Amazon. Most commonly available recordings of "Everlasting Love" by Robert Knight are re-recordings that have little of the majesty of the original, which is only on the Rising Sons label shown above. The Mp3 file you heard on this post was ripped from very clean vinyl. Clean copies of the original single are out there and affordable. Just don't get stuck with a lame remake.