River of Love

Album: The Turning (1987)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • This song is credited to both Sam Phillips and T Bone Burnett (the two had a successful business partnership and a marriage that lasted from 1989-2004). It was written for T Bone's own self-titled album, but Sam fell in love with the romantic ballad when she heard it being recorded at the studio. In a Songfacts interview with Phillips, she recalled: "I just thought that was an amazing song, and I wanted a lot of people to cover it, so I felt the least I could do was put it on my record that we were making at the time. That was when we first started to work together. He played guitar on that version that I did and I sang it."
  • The Turning, produced by T Bone Burnett, would be the final album by Christian music artist Leslie Phillips before she reinvented herself as Sam Phillips for mainstream audiences. She told Magnet Magazine: "T Bone and I just did an honest record and it caused quite a stir. And after that I left."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Facebook, Bromance and Email - The First Songs To Use New Words

Facebook, Bromance and Email - The First Songs To Use New WordsSong Writing

Where words like "email," "thirsty," "Twitter" and "gangsta" first showed up in songs, and which songs popularized them.

Stand By Me: The Perfect Song-Movie Combination

Stand By Me: The Perfect Song-Movie CombinationSong Writing

In 1986, a Stephen King novella was made into a movie, with a classic song serving as title, soundtrack and tone.

Adele

AdeleFact or Fiction

Despite her reticent personality, Adele's life and music are filled with intrigue. See if you can spot the true tales.

Ian Anderson: "The delight in making music is that you don't have a formula"

Ian Anderson: "The delight in making music is that you don't have a formula"Songwriter Interviews

Ian talks about his 3 or 4 blatant attempts to write a pop song, and also the ones he most connected with, including "Locomotive Breath."

John Lee Hooker

John Lee HookerSongwriter Interviews

Into the vaults for Bruce Pollock's 1984 conversation with the esteemed bluesman. Hooker talks about transforming a Tony Bennett classic and why you don't have to be sad and lonely to write the blues.

Al Jourgensen of Ministry

Al Jourgensen of MinistrySongwriter Interviews

In the name of song explanation, Al talks about scoring heroin for William Burroughs, and that's not even the most shocking story in this one.