Songfacts®:

• In this song, Extreme lead singer Gary Cherone looks to bury the baggage of a strained relationship and rebuild it with a song for love. Cherone's lyrics are from the heart: he doesn't offer specific details, but we do know that another song on the album, "More Than Words," deals with a real-life love he was trying to make work.
• Extreme is a rock band whose big hits are the acoustic ballads "More Than Words" and "Hole Hearted," both from the Pornograffitti album. "Song For Love" is a middle ground between these two worlds, starting slow but ending with more energy and a blazing solo from Nuno Bettencourt, who soon entered the conversation of greatest guitarists of the era.
• "Song For Love" was released as a single in Europe and did well in the UK, where it rose to #12. Two years later, Brian May of Queen invited the group to perform at Wembley Stadium in London, where they were a big part of a Freddie Mercury tribute concert.
• The music video shows concert and behind-the-scenes footage of the band, much of it in black and white. The band had been performing for five years at this point. They built up their fanbase in Boston, which earned them a deal with A&M Records. Their debut album (Extreme) was released in 1989 and got them off to a good start, but their next album, Pornograffitti, was big, selling over two million copies in America and earning them lots of airtime on MTV.
• The Canadian guitarist Pat Travers played fretless bass on this track. Travers also appears on another song from the album, "Get The Funk Out," but as a vocalist.