Foreigner – I Want To Know What Love Is

Written At 3 AM By A Man Who’d Given Up On Love

“I Want To Know What Love Is” was released in November 1984 as the lead single from Foreigner’s fifth album Agent Provocateur, hitting No.1 on both the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100. The song knocked Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” off the top spot in America and dethroned Band Aid’s “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” in Britain, staying at No.1 for two weeks in the US and three weeks in the UK. What most fans don’t know: guitarist Mick Jones wrote the entire thing at three in the morning in complete solitude, and he’d later describe it as feeling like it was “written entirely by a higher force.”

The chart dominance was unprecedented for Foreigner. The song became their first and only No.1 single in both countries, also topping charts in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, and Sweden. The parent album Agent Provocateur, released December 1984, hit No.1 in the UK—their only chart-topping album there—and peaked at No.4 on the US Billboard 200, eventually earning triple platinum certification in America. This success came after their previous ballad “Waiting for a Girl Like You” had spent a record-breaking 10 weeks stuck at No.2 without ever reaching the top spot. Finally, Foreigner had broken through.

Jones wrote the song during a deeply personal period, exhausted from failed relationships and searching for something that could endure. He told Songfacts the track started on a personal level but evolved into something more universal during recording. When he added the New Jersey Mass Choir, he suddenly realized he’d written “almost a spiritual song, almost a gospel song.” The inspiration hit him late at night when everyone had left and the phone stopped ringing—sometime in early 1984, he sat alone and the melody just appeared. Lead singer Lou Gramm later claimed he contributed between 5% and 35% to the song’s creation, though Jones credited it solely to himself, and bassist Rick Wills backed Jones’s account. Despite the authorship dispute, Gramm initially worried the ballad would push Foreigner too far into adult contemporary territory, away from their rock roots.

Recording took place primarily at The Hit Factory in New York City, with additional tracking and mixing at Right Track Studios. The sessions were chaotic—the album had started with producer Trevor Horn, who spent months creating backing tracks before abandoning the project to work with Frankie Goes to Hollywood instead. Alex Sadkin stepped in to salvage things, and the whole album took nine months to complete. The magic moment came when the New Jersey Mass Choir arrived for their vocal session. Their first takes were good but tentative, so they gathered in a circle, held hands, and said The Lord’s Prayer together. The next take was transcendent. Jennifer Holliday, the Broadway star of Dreamgirls, happened to be recording in the same studio that day and added backing vocals, while Thompson Twins frontman Tom Bailey contributed keyboards. The 30-member choir’s performance was so powerful that they later released their own version of the song in 1985.

The single appeared on Agent Provocateur, Foreigner’s fifth studio album released on Atlantic Records through their Swan Song imprint. The follow-up single “That Was Yesterday” reached No.12 in the US, but nothing matched the impact of the lead track. The album marked a creative turning point that would accelerate tensions between Jones and Gramm—the guitarist wanted a more polished, radio-friendly sound while the singer fought to maintain their hard rock edge. The dispute that began during these sessions would eventually become irreparable, hastening the end of Foreigner’s classic lineup era.

The legacy is staggering. Tina Arena covered it in 1998 with Mick Jones producing and writing an additional bridge specifically for her version. Wynonna Judd recorded it in 2004 with guitarist Jeff Beck. Mariah Carey’s 2009 rendition became a hit in Brazil. The song appeared in countless films and TV shows, became a wedding staple, and ranked No.479 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It remains one of the most-played power ballads on classic rock and adult contemporary radio, charting in the Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Recurrents top 25 as late as 2002—nearly two decades after its release.

Jimmy Page once called “I Want To Know What Love Is” the kind of song that feels like divine intervention, and Jones agreed. “Sometimes, you feel like you had nothing to do with it, really,” he told Smooth Radio. “You’re just putting it down on paper, or coming up with a melody that will bring the meaning of the song out.” Lou Gramm offered a different perspective in later interviews, acknowledging the song’s massive success but noting it fundamentally changed who Foreigner was as a band. For better or worse, that 3 AM moment when Mick Jones sat alone searching for answers about love gave the world a power ballad that would outlive every relationship it tried to heal.