| "I Honestly Love You" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Olivia Newton-John | ||||
| from the album Long Live Love (UK) If You Love Me, Let Me Know (US) |
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| B-side | "Get Your Paper Dues" (U.S.) "Home Ain't Home Anymore" (UK) |
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| Released | 28 April 1974 | |||
| Format | 7" | |||
| Recorded | January 1974 | |||
| Genre | Pop, Country | |||
| Length | 3:40 | |||
| Label | MCA | |||
| Writer(s) | Jeff Barry & Peter Allen | |||
| Producer | John Farrar | |||
| Certification | Gold (US)[1] | |||
| Olivia Newton-John singles chronology | ||||
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"I Honestly Love You" was a worldwide pop hit single for Olivia Newton-John in 1974. The song was Newton-John's first number-one single in the United States and Canada, thus cementing her as a household name in North America.
Released on the Long Live Love album in the United Kingdom by EMI, it was eventually released on the album If You Love Me, Let Me Know in the United States on MCA. The song was written by Jeff Barry and the Australian composer Peter Allen; the latter recorded it around the same time on his album Continental American. It also appears in the musical about Allen's life, The Boy from Oz. VH1 placed the song at No. 11 on its "40 Most Softsational Soft-Rock Songs" list.[2] The song won Newton-John both the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 17th Grammy Awards.[3]
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The song topped the charts in the U.S. on October 5, 1974, and went on to sell over two million copies, being certified Platinum. It also reached number one (three weeks) on the Adult Contemporary charts and number six on the Country charts, and won Grammy Awards for Female Pop Vocal Performance and Record of the Year. The song's success also helped propel its parent album, If You Love Me, Let Me Know, to number one. Its title song was released as a single prior to "I Honestly Love You", and it was also a top-five multi-format (Pop - No. 5, Adult Contemporary - No. 2, and Country - No. 2) hit. By contrast, the single failed to reach the top-twenty in the United Kingdom (#22), although it did chart there in 1983 when it was re-released to promote a Newton-John greatest hits album.
Newton-John re-released the original hit version of the song in 1977, backed with "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" from her then-current album Making a Good Thing Better, and it reached number forty-eight Pop (outperforming the only single from Making a Good Thing Better, the title song, which stalled at number eighty-seven). The song also recharted on the Adult Contemporary chart at No. 49.
| "I Honestly Love You '98" | |
|---|---|
| Single by Olivia Newton-John | |
| from the album Back with a Heart | |
| Released | 1998 |
| Format | CD single |
| Recorded | 1998 |
| Genre | Pop, Country |
| Length | 4:04 |
| Label | MCA |
| Producer | John Farrar |
In 1998, Newton-John released a new version of "I Honestly Love You" from her album Back with a Heart, which featured Babyface on background vocals, and reached number sixty-seven on the Billboard Hot 100, her first U.S. charted single in six years. The 1998 version also charted on the AC chart at No. 18 and in Country Music Sales at No. 16.
| Chart (1974) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian ARIA Singles Chart | 1 |
| Canadian RPM Top Singles | 1 |
| Canadian RPM Country Tracks | 1 |
| Canadian RPM Adult Contemporary Tracks | 1 |
| Swedish Singles Chart | 1 |
| UK Singles Chart | 22 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles | 6 |
| U.S. Billboard Easy Listening | 1 |
| Chart (1977) | Peak position |
| Canadian RPM Top Singles | 55 |
| Canadian RPM Adult Contemporary Tracks | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 48 |
| U.S. Billboard Easy Listening | 49 |
| Chart (1983) | Peak position |
| UK Singles Chart | 52 |
| Chart (1998) | Peak position |
| Australian ARIA Singles Chart | 88 |
| U.S. Billboard Country Singles Sales | 16 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100 | 67 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks | 18 |
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by "Killing Me Softly with His Song" (Roberta Flack, 1974) |
Grammy Award for Record of the Year 1975 |
Succeeded by "Love Will Keep Us Together" (Captain & Tennille, 1976) |
| Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance 1975 |
Succeeded by "At Seventeen" (Janis Ian, 1976) |
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