Roxette – It Must Have Been Love
She Had To Lip Sync At Double Speed To Sing An Emotional Ballad Mickey Mouse Style
Released in May 1990 as the third single from the Pretty Woman soundtrack, Roxette’s “It Must Have Been Love” transformed a failed 1987 German Christmas single into the duo’s third US number one, spending two weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 in June 1990 and earning second place on Billboard’s year-end chart behind Wilson Phillips’ “Hold On.” Originally titled “It Must Have Been Love (Christmas for the Broken Hearted),” the song peaked at number four in Sweden in December 1987 but EMI Germany refused to release it despite commissioning the “intelligent Christmas single” hoping for radio play. Three years later, when Touchstone Pictures approached Roxette about contributing to the Pretty Woman soundtrack, Per Gessle kept Marie Fredriksson’s original vocal intact, changing only one word from “Christmas” to “winter” while removing fake sleigh bells from the intro. Director Doug Freel’s music video required Fredriksson to lip-sync at double speed because he wanted slow-motion movement, leading her to call it “my first lesson in how to sing an emotional ballad Mickey Mouse style.” The film earned over $460 million worldwide, and the triple-platinum soundtrack sold nine million copies, turning a dusty two-year-old recording into one of the biggest songs of 1990.
The chart performance proved extraordinary across multiple territories. The song topped charts in Canada, Norway for twelve consecutive weeks, Switzerland for three non-consecutive weeks, Spain, and Poland. It peaked at number three in the UK where it spent fourteen weeks on the chart and was certified gold, becoming Roxette’s highest-charting British single. A September 1993 UK re-release coinciding with Pretty Woman‘s television premiere reached number ten. In Australia it became their second of three number ones, holding the top spot for two weeks in July 1990. The song spent nine months in Germany’s top seventy-five despite peaking at only number five. By 2005, Per Gessle received a BMI award for four million US radio plays, with updated awards following for five million plays in 2014 and six million in 2021. As of October 2025, the song has accumulated 907 million Spotify streams and the music video surpassed 891 million YouTube views, with Fredriksson’s comment about “lying around, gathering dust” proving spectacularly ironic.
The 1987 Christmas version originated when EMI Germany struggled to get Roxette airplay despite the duo’s Swedish success. The label suggested writing a Christmas song, believing seasonal material would ease market entry. Gessle composed it in spring 1987, describing it as probably the first example of finding his style in English, though he later acknowledged grammatical oddities like “there’s air of silence” being questionable phrasing. He recorded a slightly clumsy demo before properly tracking it with Fredriksson and producer Clarence Öfwerman at the brand-new digital Audio Sweden Studio in Stockholm. The Christmas version featured subtle sleigh bells and the lyric “it’s a hard Christmas day” in the second pre-chorus. Sweden embraced it as a holiday hit, but Germany—the market that requested it—declined to release it. Gessle later reflected with characteristic humor: “Danke Schön. So I wrote It Must Have Been Love and made a slightly clumsy demo… Germany? Nah, they didn’t want it! No release there. Sorry guys, next time…”
Recording the Pretty Woman version required minimal adjustments beyond the single lyric change and instrumentation additions. Gessle and Öfwerman took the 1987 recording, had Fredriksson replace the Christmas reference, and added background vocal overlays plus enhanced instrumentation to thicken the sound. The soundtrack producers initially rejected it but changed their minds after re-editing the film. Director Garry Marshall personally called Gessle while Roxette was working on the Joyride album to express his love for the song, revealing he’d re-edited the movie specifically to feature it without dialogue, wanting the music to speak for itself. Someone later told Gessle he could have won an Oscar, but that remained impossible since the song wasn’t originally written for the film. The final track opened with different guitar intro compared to the Christmas version, added rockier polished production, and featured fuller orchestration designed to match the emotional sweep of Marshall’s romantic comedy.
“It Must Have Been Love” didn’t appear on any Roxette studio album until their 1995 greatest hits collection Don’t Bore Us, Get to the Chorus!, which wasn’t released in the US until September 2000 with different track listing. The Christmas version finally received album placement on the 1997 re-release of Roxette’s 1986 debut Pearls of Passion as a bonus track alongside B-side “Turn to Me.” During the “Join the Joyride! World Tour” in 1991, the band recorded a slower country music version in Los Angeles featuring steel guitar solo replacing the original’s piano, included on their 1992 album Tourism: Songs from Studios, Stages, Hotel Rooms & Other Strange Places. A Spanish-language version appeared on their 1996 compilation Baladas en Español, translated by Spanish songwriter Luis Gomez-Escolar who later co-wrote Ricky Martin’s “Livin’ la Vida Loca.” An orchestral live performance from their 2009 Night of the Proms event was included on 2012’s Travelling.
The Doug Freel-directed warehouse video became iconic despite—or because of—the surreal production experience. Fredriksson described having to lip-sync at double speed while Freel filmed in slow motion, creating what she called singing an emotional ballad Mickey Mouse style and declaring it a strange way to make a living. The video intercut Pretty Woman clips featuring Julia Roberts and Richard Gere with shots of Fredriksson wearing a white dress and playing piano while Gessle played guitar between various prop changes. An alternate version without movie scenes appeared exclusively on the VHS release The Videos. The visual simplicity focused attention on Fredriksson’s expressive delivery, with soft lighting and dreamy haze emphasizing the ballad’s intimacy. As of June 2025, the video had accumulated over 891 million YouTube views, becoming one of the platform’s most-watched music videos from the era and introducing millions to Roxette who’d never encountered their other work.
The song’s structure defied typical power ballad conventions despite widespread perception otherwise. Gessle argued in a 2025 Guardian interview that people mistakenly classify it as a power ballad when the production is actually sparse, needing neither power chords nor big orchestrations because all the power resides in Fredriksson’s voice. Dave Simpson from The Guardian called it a masterpiece of pain, praising Fredriksson’s genius in delivering the title line clean and stoic rather than with tortured vibrato, showing resignation to fate. The jarringly urgent upward key change in the middle eight brings the pain flooding back, returning her to square one emotionally. Bill Coleman from Billboard described it as a rhythmic ballad, while Dave Sholin from the Gavin Report wrote that Gessle continues demonstrating uncanny ability to compose exceptional pop melodies while Fredriksson makes the words and music jump through speakers, noting the movie connection provided additional boost to a song that could easily stand alone.
The cultural impact extended far beyond the Pretty Woman association. The song’s success prompted UK re-releases of earlier Roxette singles “Listen to Your Heart” and “Dressed for Success” later in 1990, both charting higher in their second runs. It appeared in the 2019 film Long Shot starring Charlize Theron and Seth Rogen, featuring the Christmas version during a romantic throwback moment for two nineties kids slow-dancing, then returning after their breakup. The song became wedding reception standard and karaoke favorite, with countless talent show contestants attempting to replicate Fredriksson’s vulnerable yet powerful delivery. Per Gessle told Metro in March 2011 that Roxette performed it at every show for hundreds of times, noting they didn’t need to rehearse it. Fredriksson’s 2019 death after battling cancer for seventeen years added poignancy to the song’s already melancholic themes, with her 2009 surprise appearance at Gessle’s solo show to sing it—after eight years out of the spotlight—triggering Roxette’s reformation.
Looking back, “It Must Have Been Love” represents pop music’s capacity for unexpected second lives. A Christmas song rejected by the German market that requested it sat dormant for three years before becoming Sweden’s biggest international hit. The song Gessle wrote quickly in spring 1987, featuring questionable English phrasing and clumsy demo production, transformed into Billboard’s second-biggest single of 1990 through minimal alterations and fortunate film placement. Fredriksson’s surreal video experience lip-syncing at double speed created one of YouTube’s most-viewed music videos nearly three decades later. The sparse production Gessle defended as non-power-ballad generated power through restraint, proving sometimes less delivers more when a vocalist possesses Fredriksson’s gifts. As Marie reflected about their third US number one: “Not bad for a song that was lying around, gathering dust.” Not bad indeed. From failed German Christmas single to Pretty Woman soundtrack immortality, from Mickey Mouse-style slow-motion lip-syncing to 907 million Spotify streams, “It Must Have Been Love” traveled improbable distance. It must have been love, the chorus insists, but it’s over now. Yet decades after release, with Fredriksson gone and Roxette’s touring days finished, the song endures precisely because what’s over never truly ends when captured this perfectly. The winter remains on the ground, the whisper stays on the pillow, and somewhere Marie Fredriksson’s voice still makes those words and music jump through speakers, proving some dust-gathering songs just need the right movie at the right moment to become eternal.
