Songfacts®:

• Kenny Loggins co-wrote this song with Melissa Manchester but sang it with Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac. He wanted to sing it with Manchester (known for her hit "Midnight Blue"), but they were under different contracts.
  
  Loggins had the good fortune of being Fleetwood Mac's opening act for about a year and a half while they were touring behind their Rumours album, and this gave Kenny a lot of exposure. It's also how he got to know Stevie Nicks, who didn't get official credit on the song until the album was reissued.
• The song explores how friendship and romantic love intermingle. "The meaning of the song for me is an affirmation and an articulation of an enduring relationship," Melissa Manchester told Songfacts. "The word 'friend' seems sort of diminutive about something that is so powerful in a person's life, and I think not enough songs have been written about friendship."
  
  "You hope that a romantic relationship is cushioned in a deepening friendship, but as years goes by it is the friendship that often wanes," she added. "But I believe if you go into a relationship - romantic or not - with a friendship, it can not only endure but grow and deepen."
• The song opens with a few seconds of noodling and vocal warm-up before the layered harmonies kick in. Those harmonies were a tribute to Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys. "I always loved that challenge of trying to create intricate counterpoint melodies, vocal things," said Loggins.
• According to Manchester, she and Loggins kept running into each other at awards shows, where they were often paired together as presenters. Finally, he asked her if she'd like to collaborate and they wrote this tune at her home in one night. Loggins brought his copy of the cassette to his friend Michael McDonald and played it for him. The Doobie Brothers singer thought it was just okay. Manchester got the same reaction when she played it for Clive Davis, the head of Arista Records. The songwriters were vindicated when the single became a Top 10 hit.
  
  Said Manchester: "When you hear Kenny's sublime arrangement and the production value, I hope everyone was scratching their heads saying, 'How did we miss that?'"
• Loggins has a slightly different account of the song's timeline. In a 2020 interview with Professor of Rock, Loggins said he had been saving the melody for McDonald, his songwriting partner on "What a Fool Believes" and "This Is It," and actually played it for him the day before his writing date with Manchester. He was crushed when McDonald turned it down because he didn't hear a hit.
• Nicks said Loggins pushed her so hard to get the vocal he wanted that she nearly quit. "That was a discipline thing," she told High Times in 1982. "I call him Slave-Driver Loggins. He cracked the whip on me for two days to get that particular performance. And I was downright angry at points where I was going, 'I'm not going to do this.' He said, 'Yes, you are.' He's a real good producer, Kenny, he got exactly what he wanted. When it was done and I left, I was knocked out. I really had to keep my mouth shut and do what I was told. And it worked. He wasn't interested in a dull vocal."
• The song is part of Nightwatch, Kenny Loggins' second solo album (following Celebrate Me Home). He previously performed in the popular pop/rock duo Loggins & Messina with Poco and Buffalo Springfield veteran Jim Messina, but "Whenever I Call You 'Friend'" was Loggins' first big hit as a solo artist (his previous single, "I Believe In Love," stalled at #66).
  
  Loggins roared into the '80s with some very popular songs from movies, starting with "I'm Alright" from Caddyshack. In 1982 he released another duet - "Don't Fight It" with Journey lead singer Steve Perry - which reached #17.
• Melissa Manchester recorded a more restrained version of "Whenever I Call You 'Friend'" in a duet with Arnold McCuller for her 1979 self-titled album.
  
  It took 45 years, but she finally recorded it with Kenny Loggins in 2023. This version appears on Manchester's album Re:View.
• Michael Johnson and Alison Krauss teamed up to cover this song in 1997 for Johnson's album Then And Now. Others to duet on the song include Tom Jones and Lynn Anderson, and Sara Evans and Phillip Sweet. The cast of the TV series Glee covered it in the 2014 episode "Frenemies."
• When Manchester appeared on The Muppet Show in 1980, she sang this with Floyd Pepper (the bass player from The Electric Mayhem) and the rest of the Muppets.
• This was used on the TV shows Up All Night ("Letting Go" - 2012), and Masquerade ("Caribbean Holiday" - 1984). It was also featured in the 1995 movie Safe, starring Julianne Moore.