Songfacts®:

• "The Next Time I Fall" is a duet with Amy Grant. It's a song about a couple that have been unlucky in love but have learned from their mistakes. The next time they fall in love, they vow, it will be with each other.
  
  The song is right in the sweet spot for Peter Cetera, who had a #1 hit earlier in 1986 with "Glory Of Love." "The Next Time I Fall" came a few months later and gave him another #1. Cetera had recently left the band Chicago after leading them in a mellow gold direction with songs like "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" and "You're the Inspiration."
  
  As for Amy Grant, she was relatively unknown outside of the Christian music scene where she was known as the "Queen of Christian Pop." She had started branching into secular music, starting with her 1985 single "Find A Way," which was a minor hit. This team-up with Cetera proved she had plenty of appeal outside the confines of Christian music and led to her 1991 breakthrough album Heart In Motion, which includes the #1 hit "Baby Baby."
• The song was written by the team of Bobby Caldwell and Paul Gordon. They originally pitched it to Chicago, unaware that Peter Cetera had left the group. Fortunately, Cetera was recording a solo album and he was looking for songs to record, so they offered it to him and he took it.
• "The Next Time I Fall" wasn't written as a duet but Cetera decided it should be. His producer, Michael Omartian, had worked with Amy Grant and suggested her as the partner. Cetera had never heard of her, but he decided to give her a shot. She was a big Peter Cetera fan and particularly liked his work on the Chicago song "Saturday In The Park."
  
  According to Grant, the session with Cetera went really well but she had the sense that if it didn't, they had another singer in mind for her part. Cetera was very happy with her contribution, so that wasn't a problem. She was also compatible with him visually, which helped for the music video.
• Sometimes you don't need words. Notice in the chorus, "I'll know better what to do" is rhymed with "Ooh ooh ooh."
• The song's co-writer, Bobby Caldwell, is also a solo artist known for his 1978 #9 hit "What You Won't Do for Love," which has subsequently had over 70 cover recordings and samples. These include Go West's 1993 version, which peaked at #15 in the UK and #55 in the US, and rapper Tupac Shakur, who had a Top 30 hit in both the UK and US in 1998 with his reworking, "Do For Love." Caldwell is even better known in Japan where in 1992, he received the nation's equivalent of a Grammy as the "best international artist."
• Bobby Caldwell told American Songwriter magazine September/October 1988 that he and his writing partner Paul Gordon were having difficulties coming up with the next line to "I remember the line that you came up with that put me on the floor." He recalled: "We sat for three days and all of a sudden, sitting there one day, Paul looks up and says 'I will know better why the next time I try.' And that was it."
• Michael Omartian, who produced this song, continued working with Amy Grant and co-wrote her 1991 hit "That's What Love Is For." Among the many other songs he's produced are "Undercover Angel" by Alan O'Day, "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" by Christopher Cross and "She Works Hard For The Money" by Donna Summer.
• The song's co-writer Paul Gordon recalled to American Songwriter magazine that Caldwell's demo was different from Omartian's final version of the song and they hadn't intended the song to be a duet. However the duo were pleased with the finished version. He added: "Michael didn't copy Bobby's demo, even though Bobby's arrangement was excellent. A lot of people I know enjoy the demo as much as the record, if not more. And I'm taking nothing away from the demo 'cause it was great. Michael is a musician and that's what kind of producer he is. He didn't want to take Bobby's vision. He wanted his own vision."
• The music video takes place in a dance studio for some reason, where Grant and Cetera appear in a lots of soft-focus shots but never share the screen, as if there's some barrier between them they'll have to overcome (like most romantic comedies). Amy Grant was married at the time to another Christian music artist, Gary Chapman. Staying clear of Cetera in the video appeased her more conservative fans who wouldn't want her cavorting with a man who isn't her husband.
  
  Grant broke this barrier in 1991 in the video for "Baby Baby," where she gets cuddly with an actor. That did cause some unrest in her fan base, but didn't stop her from getting lovey dovey with Vince Gill in the video for their 1994 duet "House Of Love." This time, though, the chemistry was real. Gill and Grant later divorced their spouses and in 2000 married each other.
• "The Next Time I Fall" was a #1 Adult Contemporary hit in addition to topping the Hot 100. It got a boost from VH1, the mature-minded video channel that launched at the beginning of 1985.
• Cetera did more duets, including one with Agnetha Faltskog in 1988 on the song "I Wasn't The One (Who Said Goodbye)" and with Cher on the 1989 hit "After All." Amy Grant jokingly said that whenever she heard one of these, she felt like an ex-girlfriend.