Songfacts®:

• Pianist Richard Kerr, who wrote the music for Manilow's first hit "Mandy," wrote the music for this song. Will Jennings, who has contributed lyrics for songs by Eric Clapton, Dionne Warwick, Bonnie Raitt, Diana Ross and many others, wrote the lyrics. Jennings told Songfacts about the meaning:
  
  "You walk into a party. Someone you used to love and someone who used to love you is there. You are each with someone else. 'Looks like we made it, left each other on the way to another love... looks like we made it, or I thought so until the day, until you were there, everywhere, and all I could taste was love the way we made it'... real life. And if you feel that way, you didn't make it."
• Jennings and Kerr teamed up to write Manilow's 1979 hit, "Somewhere In The Night." Over the next few years, Jennings wrote a lot of songs for The Crusaders and Steve Winwood.
• This song was used in a 2012 commercial for the Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck that aired during the Super Bowl. In the spot, a Silverado drives through an apocalyptic scene and meets up with other dusty owners of these trucks. The Fords, which they claim are less dependable, didn't make it.
• Kerr and Jennings sacrificed a rare sunny day in London to write this bittersweet ballad. They holed up in Kerr's apartment, where they drew the curtains closed and dimmed the lights so they wouldn't be tempted to go outside.
  
  "We wrote this one in Richard's flat in London where he banged away at a huge upright piano he called Old Joanna," Jennings recalled in the liner notes to Manilow's 1992 compilation, The Complete Collection And Then Some. "He gave me another of those beautiful, over-the-top-don't-spare-the-melodrama melodies, with at least two melodic hooks in the verse and two more in the chorus. All this accomplished with much good wine and Indian food in between writing sessions and much hilarity."
• According to Jennings, most of the listeners who made this song a huge hit didn't really get what it was about. "Richard and I have often remarked on the people, millions of them in the world, who misunderstood the lyric of 'Looks Like We Made It,'" he said. "It is a rather sad and ironic lyric about making it apart and not together, and of course everyone thinks it is a full on, positive statement. I don't know. Perhaps it is … in a way."
• This was the third single from Manilow's fourth studio album, This One's For You. The album peaked at #6 in the US, where it sold 2 million copies.
• This was Manilow's last #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. He previously reached the top two times with "Mandy" and "I Write The Songs."
• This was also Manilow's fifth consecutive #1 hit on the Adult Contemporary chart. The streak was broken by "Daybreak" - from Barry Manilow Live - which only managed to reach #7.
• This was included in Manilow's set during his 12-day stint at the Uris Theatre in New York City, where he recorded his live album in December 1976. When the album was released in May 1977 (a month after "Looks Like We Made It" hit the charts), it became his first album to reach #1 in the US.
• Manilow performed this in concert as part of a medley with "Send In The Clowns" from the 1973 Broadway musical A Little Night Music.
• This was used on season 2 of Friends in the episode "The One After The Superbowl: Part 2," when Ross spends a final day with his former pet monkey.
  
  It was also used on Family Guy ("Brian Does Hollywood" - 2001) and Gilmore Girls ("Like Mother, Like Daughter" - 2001), as well as the 2004 movie The Last Shot.