It's Only Love

Album: Tejas (1976)
Charted: 44
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Songfacts®:

  • In this bluesy number, our hero has figured out that lying and two-timing a wonderful girl is a great way to lose her. He's ready to take his whoopin' and move on, determined to get it right next time. Many songs with this scenario have the guy trying to win the girl back, but ZZ Top was never into groveling.
  • Billy Gibbons and Dusty Hill share lead vocals on this one. It was released as the first single from the group's fifth album, Tejas, which contained another minor hit, "Arrested For Driving While Blind."

    By this time, the group was exhausted from contant touring, including their massive "Worldwide Texas" tour. They took almost three years off, returning in 1979 with Gibbons and Hill sporting their enormous beards.
  • In a Songfacts interview with Billy Gibbons, he named this the hidden gem in the ZZ Top catalog. "It's a blues/country combo platter that owes something to the immortal Jimmy Reed insofar as 'Baby, what you tryin' to do' is a lyric inspired by Jimmy's 'Baby What You Want Me To Do,'" he explained. "It's 'fonky' with an 'o.'"

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