Tina Turner – What’s Love Got To Do With It (Live)

“What’s Love Got to Do with It” – Single by Tina Turner from the album Private Dancer
B-side: “Rock and Roll Widow” (US); “Don’t Rush the Good Things” (UK)
Released: May 1984
Label: Capitol
Songwriters: Graham Lyle, Terry Britten
Producer: Terry Britten

Private Dancer was Turner’s first album for Capitol Records. They took a chance on her when it appeared she was no longer marketable, and it paid off big, as the album was a huge hit. Recording the album was no easy task, as several producers, songwriters and musicians were used to assemble the various songs. One of the producers was Rupert Hine, who worked on the tracks “Better Be Good To Me” and “I Might Have Been Queen.” Hine told Songfacts that it was Turner’s professionalism and ungodly talent that made it work. Said Hine: “She approaches things in such a diligent way and she ‘owns the song’ – that’s the phrase she used to use, which basically means she sings along with it at home. I give her a songwriter’s demo and then she’ll sing it in her key. And then the point where she sings along with the tape and she feels she’s got it, it’s now her song.”

Until the release of “What’s Love Got to Do with It”, Tina Turner had not had a US top-ten single since the early 1970s. The single went to number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 and remained there for three weeks, giving Turner her first and only solo number-one hit in the U.S. Turner was 44 when the song hit number one, at the time making her the oldest female solo artist to place a number-one single on the US Hot 100.

The song also spent five weeks at number two on the Billboard Hot Black Singles chart, from July 14 to August 18, 1984, “When Doves Cry”, by Prince, being the reason it never reached its number-one spot. At the end of the year, the song was ranked the second-best-performing song of 1984 on the Billboard Year-End Hot 100, behind the aforementioned “When Doves Cry”.

Worldwide, the song did well on the music charts, reaching number one in Australia and Canada. It peaked at number three in New Zealand and on the UK Singles Chart, becoming her highest-charting single on the latter chart alongside “River Deep – Mountain High” and “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)”. Elsewhere, the song reached the top 10 in many European countries, including the top 5 in Ireland, Sweden, and Austria. It also reached number two in South Africa.

The accompanying music video for “What’s Love Got to Do with It” features Turner walking down the street in a leather miniskirt, engaging with the public, intercut with scenes where she is singing directly to camera. The video was shot in New York City during the spring of 1984. Pamela Springsteen, Bruce Springsteen’s sister from Sleepaway Camp 2, makes an appearance as a street dancer along with Vanessa Bell Calloway, who would later portray the fictional character of Jackie (Turner’s friend) in the 1993 film What’s Love Got to Do with It. The video was directed by John Mark Robinson.