Songfacts®:

• This soft-rock favorite has a writer you wouldn't expect: Neil Young, who released his version on his 1978 album Comes A Time around the same time Nicolette Larson issued it as her first single.
  
  Young's version is far more understated, with a restrained vocal and gentle piano by Spooner Oldham. Larson's rendition is a kitchen-sink production with horns, strings, and a soaring vocal where she hits some big notes. There's even a flute solo by Plas Johnson! This was the sound of the '70s, and it landed Larson a hit, going to #8 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart.
  
  Despite the stark differences in presentation, both versions have the same sentiment: It's gonna take a lotta love to make this pairing work.
• Neil Young started playing this song live in 1976, long before he recorded it. After it became a hit for Larson, he would sometimes slip it into his sets, baffling the more fairweather of his fans who didn't know he wrote it.
• Nicolette Larson worked with Neil Young as a backup singer, first on his 1977 album American Stars 'n Bars and then on Comes A Time (she doesn't appear on Young's version of the song - on that album she's best heard on the track "Motorcycle Mama").
  
  According to Larson, she heard the song when she found a tape on the floor of Young's car that included his demo. "I popped it in the tape player and commented on what a great song it was," she told the Associated Press. "Neil said: 'You want it? It's yours.'"
• How Nicolette met Neil: She had already been working as a recording artist, first on the 1975 Commander Cody album Tales From the Ozone (Commander Cody was best known for the 1971 hit "Hot Rod Lincoln"), then eventually with Emmylou Harris, which led to her meeting Harris' associate and friend, Linda Ronstadt. Larson visited Ronstadt's Malibu home when neighbor Neil Young dropped by looking for a new female vocalist. Neil and Larson had their first jam session that day and he was thrilled. Together, Larson and Ronstadt became "The Saddlebags," credited as such on Young's American Stars 'n Bars album. (This wasn't Ronstadt's first backing vocal for Young: She and James Taylor both sang on "Heart of Gold.")
  
  As you probably surmised, Young and Larson also had a brief affair during this time, ending when Young "just disappeared" (as Larson stated in People). After they split, Young got involved with a waitress named Pegi working at the Bella Vista Restaurant who became his second wife in 1978.
• Rolling Stone declared Larson Female Vocalist of 1978, but she had trouble following up "Lotta Love" with another hit. The highest she got was #35 with her 1979 Michael McDonald duet "Let Me Go, Love." In the mid-'80s, she switched genre to country and made a handful of appearances on the Country chart.
• Aside from "Heart Of Gold," this is the only US Top 10 hit Neil Young ever wrote, surprising considering his contributions to Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Especially in his solo work, Young would sometimes go out of his way to make sure his songs weren't too mainstream.
• Larson passed away on December 16, 1997. On February 21 and 22 of 1998, a tribute concert called the Lotta Love Concert was held in her honor. Performers included Dan Fogelberg, Joe Walsh, Jackson Browne, Emmylou Harris, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jimmy Buffet, Carole King, Linda Ronstadt, Little Feat, and Bonnie Raitt. Young did not attend, but according to the liner notes for the album cut from the concert, he sent "a bouquet of roses as big as the audience."