Songfacts®:

• A hit in the summer of 1984, this energetic love song got a nice boost from the 1984 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles. The video shows various leaping athletes competing in events like the long jump, high jump and triple jump. Without using any actual Olympic footage, it tied in nicely to the games. The Pointer Sisters, who were more of a retro-R&B group in the '70s, adapted well to the '80s with upbeat keyboard-driven songs like this one. >>

  Suggestion credit:
  Mike - Santa Barbara, CA
• June Pointer sang lead on this one. She and her sisters Anita and Ruth spread out the lead vocals equitably so none were consistently the lead singer. Another sister, Bonnie, left the group a few years earlier.
• "Jump (For My Love)" was written by Steve Mitchell, Marti Sharron and Gary Skardina. That team also wrote "Dangerous" for Natalie Cole.
• This won a Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal in 1985.
• In 2003, Girls Aloud recorded "Jump" for the soundtrack of the movie Love Actually. The Pointer Sisters original version was used in the film, where it features in a scene where Hugh Grant, playing the British Prime Minister, dances to it. Girls Aloud's cover allowed for more promotional opportunities in the UK, where their video was based on the film.
  
  Hugh Grant's verdict about his dance: it was "the most excruciating scene ever committed to celluloid."
  
  The group's club-ready cover peaked at #2 on the Official Singles Chart. Their recording was a make-or-break song for the girls and its success persuaded their record label to invest in a second Girls Aloud album.
  
  "Jump saved our career," Nicola Roberts wrote in the liner essay for 20th anniversary re-release of the group's debut album, Sound of the Underground. "It was four on the floor so it could be played in the clubs, but it was also familiar enough to be played on the radio. And at this point, it was probably our most digestible single."
• In 1984, this appeared on episodes of Knight Rider, Miami Vice and St. Elsewhere. Later TV series to use it include:
  
  Grey's Anatomy ("Everything I Try to Do, Nothing Seems to Turn Out Right" - 2014)
  Married... with Children ("A Shoe Room with a View" - 1995)
  227 ("The Big Deal" - 1988)
  
  It also shows up in these movies:
  
  Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins (2008)
  The Trip (2002)
  Children of a Lesser God (1986)