“Love Hurts”
by Kim Deal and Robert Pollard (originally by The Everly Brothers)
from the album Love and a .45
1994
Buy the album on Amazon

I feel grossly uninformed, but until a week or two ago, I didn’t know anything about this song. It’s another one I randomly came across at some point and downloaded strictly because of Kim Deal (I never got into GBV). I was actually going to post it at the end of last month for #AprilDuets, but then when I started looking into it, i realized how much history the song had.

So take my hand as we go down the rabbit hole…

It was first recorded by the Everly Brothers:

But the first time it was a hit was with Roy Orbison:

Add in a bunch more versions by pretty much every musician ever:

The Who
Cher
Journey
Don McLean
Joan Jett
Corey Hart
Sinead O’Connor
Jenny Lewis
etc.
etc.

including this amazing version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZhNW_jKrQY

In among all those other versions is the only that ever stuck out for me, from the Love and a .45 soundtrack, which I think I somehow never saw (no official video, but this one is kind of great):

I haven’t listened to any of the other versions beyond the ones with the videos here, but I like everyone I’ve heard, which is the power of great, simple lyrics which can mold themselves to whatever voice they’re given to.