Songfacts®:

• The J. Geils band told us in 1980 that "Love Stinks," but Def Leppard reminds us that it also bites.
  
  In this song, Joe Elliott has a lot of questions:
  
  When you make love, do you look in the mirror?
  Who do you think of, does he look like me?
  
  It sounds like his girlfriend has taken up with another guy, but then it becomes clear that Joe is still in the picture:
  
  When I'm with you are you somewhere else?
  Am I gettin' thru or do you please yourself?
  
  Ah, seems she's a bit disconnected when it comes to intimacy, and if there is another guy, he's part of her fantasy. Joe has the opposite problem:
  
  I don't wanna touch you too much baby
  'Cos making love to you might drive me crazy
  
  So she needs additional mental stimulation, and he can't handle too much of her touch. Love bites indeed.
• The title could have a double meaning if you believe that there is some biting going on during this lovemaking. As it says in the song, love also bleeds.
• This was the fifth single released from the Hysteria album in the US. The album came out in August 1987, and the first single, "Women," stalled at #80 in September. "Animal" made #19 in December, the title track reached #10 in March 1988, and "Pour Some Sugar On Me" got Leppard fans through the summer, peaking at #2 in July. You might think listeners would be fatigued at this point, but clearly there was still an appetite, as "Love Bites" reached #1 in October 1988, giving the group their only chart-topper.
  
  Remarkably, they squeezed two more singles out of the album: "Armageddon It" (#3, January 1989) and "Rocket" (#12, April 1989).
• A popular rumor about the song concerns the final seconds. After the line, "If you got love in your sights, watch out, love bites," what is seemingly heard is "Jesus of Nazareth, go to Hell." This rumor has been refuted by the band, most notably on a Hysteria documentary. The line is in fact producer Mutt Lange rambling in a Yorkshire accent, to the effect of "Yes it does, bloody hell," with the aid of a vocoder. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Annabelle - Eugene, OR
• In a Songfacts interview with Def Leppard guitarist Phil Collen, he said of this song, "It was just a standard rock ballad but it had something else going for it. Lyrically, it kind of painted a picture, and in a song you always want to do that, paint a picture. 'On a dark desert highway,' the first line of 'Hotel California,' great song, it just paints an image for you straight off the bat and that's the sign of a really good song. It takes you right there. 'Love Bites' did that as well."
• The video was directed by Jean Pellerin, who also did the clips for "Women" and "Hysteria." Def Leppard's success on MTV helped them break out in America even while they were slagged off in their native England. How did the band feel about the network? Lead singer Joe Elliot talked about how he got along with MTV VJs in MTV Ruled the World - The Early Years of Music Video: "JJ reminded me of Harry Belafonte! He was such a great guy to do interviews with. I was in and out all the summer of '83 with voice problems, canceling gigs and rescheduling them and coming on and telling everybody I'm alive and kicking and everything's fine. Martha Quinn - I remember our manager Cliff Bernstein had a crush on her big time."
• Mutt Lange, who got writing credits on all the Hysteria tracks along with the band members, wrote the first version of this song, which he played on an acoustic guitar for guitarists Phil Cullen and Steve Clark. Cullen remembers Lange's acoustic rendition sounding like an Eagles song, as Lange sings like Don Henley. In the final mix, the backing vocals are almost all Lange.
• According to the song, here's what love does:
  
  Bites
  Bleeds
  Brings Me To My Knees
  Lives
  Dies
  Begs
  Pleads
• "Love Bites" was originally slated as the title for a different song, but that track was later re-titled "I Wanna Be Your Hero."
• This is the only track from the Hysteria album with keyboards.
• There was a girl group from Midlands, England called Love Bites. The girls, Dani Graham, Nicki Wood, and sisters Aimee and Hannah Haddon, formed at school, wrote their own songs and got a record deal without outside help. Their first single was "You Broke My Heart," which was a hit in the UK.