Songfacts®:

• Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine wrote "This Love" at a crossroads when he was breaking up with his girlfriend and working on the band's debut album, Songs About Jane. And yes, Jane is the girlfriend.
  
  "This song was just written in the most emotionally trying time in my life," Levine told MTV. "I was in a relationship that was ending, but I was really excited on the other end because the band was about to go make the record and I was ecstatic to go in the studio. She was literally leaving town within days of me writing the lyrics to 'This Love,' so I was in prime emotional condition to write a song with that kind of conflict."
• Note where Adam Levine sings:
  
  Whispered goodbye as she got on a plane
  Never to return again
  
  According to Levine, he really didn't see Jane again. He called her to ask if it was OK to use her name in the album title, but that was the last time he spoke with her. "She seemed flattered, but I know she disapproves of me and what I do with my life," he told Gavin Edwards.
• There are two versions of the video, both with Adam Levine canoodling with his girlfriend at the time, model Kelly McGee. The second is a censored version where flowers cover nudity.
  
  Sophie Muller directed the video, along with the band's "She Will Be Loved" and "Won't Go Home Without You."
• "This Love" was Maroon 5's second single, following "Harder To Breathe." The band travelled a long road. Formed in Los Angeles, they started under the name Kara's Flowers, which released an album in 1997 but were quickly dropped from their label. In 2001 they reconstituted as Maroon 5 with James Valentine added on guitar, describing themselves as "a soul band, but with five white dudes."
  
  They released the Songs About Jane album in the summer of 2002 and spent the next year or so opening for Matchbox Twenty, Sheryl Crow, Counting Crows, Sugar Ray, Michelle Branch and various other purveyors of popular songs that didn't lean too far in the direction of rock or hip-hop. Musically, they fit right with these acts, and radio stations took note. "This Love" reached a chart peak of #5 in April 2003, and the next single, "She Will Be Loved," peaked at #5 in September. By the time they released the last single fron the album, "Sunday Morning," it was guaranteed airplay. That one went to #31 in February 2005.
• Maroon 5 won the 2004 Grammy Award for Best New Artist. The next year, a live version of "This Love" from their album Live – Friday the 13th won the award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group With Vocal.
• The Miami Herald October 3, 2008 commented to Adam Levine that many of Maroon 5's videos are pretty steamy (such as this one), before asking the singer if he was consciously trying to push boundaries. Levine replied: "Well, I think there's definitely a sexual element to a lot of the music, so it would make sense that there would be a sexual element to the videos as well. It's all very natural to me. But yes, I don't want to just show a little bit of skin. I want to go for it. I'd like to get to the point where we could shock people. I grew up listening to the Beatles and the Stones and Zeppelin, but I also grew up listening to Prince, who was kind of a sexual icon. So I have a lot of different tastes I like to display. But yeah, pushing it is always nice. When people get a little uncomfortable, I have no problem with that."
• "This Love" is the most-played live song in Maroon 5's discography, a crowd-pleaser with more staying power than many of their later hits like "Daylight" or "Memories." When Maroon 5 headlined the halftime show of Super Bowl LIII in 2019 between the Patriots and the Rams, they opened their set with this song.
• About Jane: According to Vogue, her name is Jane Herman, and she later wrote for that magazine. She and Levine dated from 1997-2001.
  
  Herman went on to get married and start a clothing/fashion company called The Only Jane. It appears she's never spoken publicly about Levine.