My Love Is Your Love

Album: My Love Is Your Love (1998)
Charted: 2 4
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Songfacts®:

  • Whitney Houston updated her sound for her 1998 album My Love Is Your Love, moving away from big, sweeping ballads and singing over beats made my some of the hottest producers. This title track to the album was written by produced by Wyclef Jean and his cousin, Jerry "Wonda" Duplessis, who helmed Fugees' 1996 album The Score. Wyclef was starting to branch out past the Fugees with great success. Around this time he also remixed Destiny's Child's "No, No, No" and, along with Duplessis, crafted the Santana hit "Maria Maria."
  • The song is about a love so strong it overpowers any problems, including an armageddon. It's a stark contrast from the two previous singles from the album, "Heartbreak Hotel" and "It's Not Right But It's Okay."
  • Wonda recalled the story of the song in an interview with The Boombox: "It's actually a song that I remember me and Clef cooked the beat for on the bus while we were on tour," he said. "When Whitney showed up, she was with her daughter and I remember when we put her daughter [in front of the mic] and she said, 'Sing Mommy!' She loved it so much, it was like, she'd be like, 'Cue my daughter's voice loud!' We'd turn it up, she'd be like, 'No! Louder! Louder!'"
  • The tune was a massive hit worldwide, becoming another one of Houston's signature songs. It topped the European Hot 100 Singles Chart for a week and also peaked at #1 in New Zealand.
  • The backing vocals from The Family Friends Community Choir.
  • You don't hear many Amistad references in love songs, but there's one here:

    The chains of Amistad couldn't hold us

    The Amistad was a ship that was transporting slaves out of Africa in 1839 when they revolted. Steven Spielberg made a movie about it in 1997.
  • This was sampled by Duke Dumont on his 2014 UK chart-topper "I Got U." He told MTV UK: "With things like that you need to seek permission to use the vocal and Wyclef is kind of quite tough with his music. He doesn't let people use his music for a lot of things but he was willing for us to use the Whitney recording. That was quite nice getting a little bit of respect from his side. So that was a nice touch to it."

Comments: 1

  • Dios Moagi from Tzaneen, South AfricaThis song is more about appreciation to a time well spent with a loved one. When you truly love, sometimes you'd feel like givin up your all just to be with someone. I do not know what Whitney was going through, but the lyrics depicts the longing and how much one can feel whole around someone they truly love, and hopefully insinuating that we might be looking to achieve the big feats in life when all that is necessary is to simply love and be loved fully without restraint.
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