Songfacts®:

• Miami Sound Machine lead singer Gloria Estefan wrote "Words Get In The Way" after she had a horrendous argument with her husband Emilio, the group's leader. After the song became a big hit, he said, "We have to have more arguments."
• There's really no Miami sound in this Miami Sound Machine song - it's a gentle ballad with a track based on drum machines and keyboards, the sound of 1985. The song is driven by Gloria Estefan's vocals and the story she tells in the lyric.
• "Words Get In The Way" is part of Miami Sound Machine's breakthrough album Primitive Love. The first single, "Conga," exemplifies their sound and their Cuban heritage (both Gloria and Emilio Estefan were born there), with lots of Latin percussion and a celebratory lyric about dancing. The lively, lightweight "Bad Boy" was the next single, followed by "Words Get In The Way." All three songs were Top 10 hits, and all have different styles, a sign that the band would have staying power.
  
  On their next album, Let It Loose in 1987, they became "Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine," and had hits with "1-2-3" and "Anything For You." The following album, Cuts Both Ways, was billed as a Gloria Estefan solo album even though some band members played on it and the subsequent tour was with Miami Sound Machine. After that, the Miami Sound Machine brand was phased out and the focus was squarely on Gloria. Emilio was happy to stay in the background as a producer in manager.
• This is the only song on the Primitive Love album that Gloria Estefan wrote - most of the other tracks were written by a trio that worked on the group's studio efforts. By this time, they had bifurcated into two groups: one for recording, another for touring, with Gloria part of both. Over time, Estefan took a more active role in the songwriting. She's a co-writer on their 1987 hit "Rhythm Is Gonna Get You" and the sole writer on "Anything For You."
• This is one of the few big hits from the mid-'80s that didn't have a music video. MTV wouldn't have touched it, but the older-skewing VH1, which went on the air earlier in 1985, certainly would have played it.
• Miami Sound Machine formed in 1977 and released a few albums in Spanish before focusing on English-Language songs in the mid-'80s. Their crossover led the way for acts like Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, and a superstar that Emilio and Gloria Estefan mentored: Shakira.
  
  "Words Get In The Way" proved that pop music from a Latin artist could be indistinguishable from the offerings of non-Latin artists. Another Miami-based group that deserves some credit as well is Exposé, who had uptempo hits around this time like "Point Of No Return" and "Come Go With Me," but also scored with ballads like "Seasons Change" and "I'll Never Get Over You Getting Over Me."
• "Words Get In The Way" was used on the 1993 Melrose Place episode "Peanut Butter and Jealousy." It's also featured in the 1996 romantic comedy-drama Jerry Maguire, starring Tom Cruise and Renee Zellweger.
• This was the first #1 Adult Contemporary hit for Miami Sound Machine, which had more with "Can't Stay Away from You," "Anything For You" and "1-2-3." Estfan's solo efforts to top that chart are "Here We Are," "Cuts Both Ways" and "Coming Out Of The Dark."
• The title doesn't translate well to Spanish, so when the group made a Spanish version of the song, they named it "No Me Vuelvo A Enamorar," which means "I won't fall in love again."