Songfacts®:

• The first big pop hit for the Commodores, "Sweet Love" was the first of their Lionel Richie-written ballads that moved them away from the stone cold funk sound they started with. The song is vague but powerful treatise on the healing powers of love.
• Richie borrowed some well-worn lines in his lyric:
  
  Show me a river that's so deep
  Show me a mountain so high
  
  "River Deep - Mountain High" was a song by Ike & Tina Turner released in 1966.
  
  Put a little love in your heart
  
  This is the title of a Jackie DeShannon hit from 1969.
• In a Songfacts interview with Commodores founding member Thomas McClary, he said: "I was very moved by the fact that in the harmonies of 'Sweet Love,' in the early days, we would play other artists' songs, because we didn't have our own original songs. So, we would play songs by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, for instance. If you recall, their uniqueness was their harmonies. So, I often think about the harmonies that try to make that song different, and bringing into play the funk with a ballad, which kind of gave 'Sweet Love' that unique sound."