Songfacts®:

• The idea for this song came from the Stephen Covey book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Clint Black recalled to Bart Herbison of the Nashville Songwriters Association International.
  
  "There was a suggestion in the book that our relationships - all of them - would be more successful if we treated love as a verb instead of a noun. That was a profound new thought for me to chew on. … It evolved in my mind into 'Love isn't something that we have. It's something that we do.' And I've always been a student of human behavior. I've always been a student of, you know, what makes relationships work and not work and all of that stuff, so this idea for me, as a student of songs and poetry, it felt new. I didn't think I'd heard that suggested in any song, so I felt like it was a really strong place to start."
• Clint Black penned the song with Skip Ewing at the singer's Malibu beach house. It was hard work as Black wanted every word to be true to him as well as ensuring it was good enough to keep his songwriting partner satisfied. He recalled:
  
  "These words are coming out of my mouth. It's naturally going to be taken as autobiographical, so if that's the case, then it needs to ring true for my marriage. With other songwriters I've written with, if we're going to sing a love song, I have to tell you right now, you know, it's going to have to live up to my marriage, unless you record it, then you can sing whatever you want. You know, Skip was great about that and we charged ahead and it was a real, real struggle to get both of us happy." (Source of above two quotes The Tennessean.)
• The song was released on August 25, 1997 as the second single from Nothin' but the Taillights. It peaked at #2 on the country chart and #67 on the Hot 100.
• It was voted song of the year by the Nashville Songwriters Association International.