Songfacts®:

• "Only Love Can Break A Heart" was written by the songwriting team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, the duo behind Pitney's previous hit, "(The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance." Bacharach and David penned a few more hits for Pitney, including "Twenty-Four Hours From Tulsa" before discovering their longtime muse: Dionne Warwick.
• This was Pitney's biggest hit in the US. In an ironic twist, it was kept out of the #1 spot by a song that he had written himself: "He's A Rebel," which was a hit for The Crystals.
• The whistling that occurs before the first verse and during the ending was done by Pitney himself. >>

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  Jerro - New Alexandria, PA, for above 3
• Margaret Whiting and Bobby Vinton had some success on the Adult Contemporary chart with their renditions. Whiting hit #4 in 1967, while Vinton peaked at #46 in 1977. That same year, Dionne Warwick recorded a cover on the compilation album Only Love Can Break A Heart. Glen Campbell also recorded it for his 1999 album, My Hits and Love Songs.
  
  Country singers fared better. Sonny James' version peaked at #2 on the Country chart in 1972, and Kenny Dale had his biggest hit on the tally when his cover landed at #7 in 1979.
• In this song, a guy has cheated on his girl and is asking - no, begging - for forgiveness. His argument: Only love can break a heart, so only love can mend it again. It's a stretch, but you get the sense that she just might fall for it. Gene Pitney (who died at 66 in 2006) had a high, almost angelic voice, so you want to believe him when he sings it.
• Burt Bacharach and Hal David wrote this song specifically for Gene Pitney to sing. Instead of making a demo, they just played it for him on a piano.
• Burt Bacharach wrote about the song in his memoir Anyone Who Had A Heart: "The melody doesn't sound like something I would have written without having first seen the lyrics, and the song has a very odd structure. Hal must have given me the line, 'Last night I hurt you, but darling remember this,' because the hook, which is almost like the chorus, comes in four bars after the song starts. It's an unusual form but that never bothered me so long as it made sense."