ROXETTE

written by Per Gessle

produced by Clarence Öfwerman

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In early ’87, Per wrote and demoed a little holiday-flavored ditty

originally titled “Christmas For The Broken-Hearted.” The lead line

of its chorus turned out to be the title of the more “grown-up”

version a few years later. In the meantime, with the debut Pearls Of

Passion album in the can, a few singles and videos out, and a bit of

Rox-steam gathered thus far, Per and Marie recorded the original

holiday version of the song later in the year, combining both titles. It

was released as a standalone single just in time for Christmas, in late

November. It was quite a voice workout for Marie singing lead; with

the modulation, it covers two octaves. She since lost her ability to hit

the post-modulation extra high notes.

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About a year and a half later, in ’89—after a few more things happened, and Roxette had begun to skyrocket—Per and Marie got a request for a first: to contribute a song to an upcoming Hollywood motion picture. It was from director Garry Marshall. The new film at the time was called $3,000, starring the young then-unknown Julia Roberts and the atop-the-hill-if-not-over-it Richard Gere. The prospect seemed less than promising at the moment. Roxette, besides, were in the midst of touring with their new—mega-hit—album Look Sharp!, and didn’t have the time to write new material, or go into the studio to cut it. So they reached into the vault, pulled out “Christmas For The Broken-Hearted,” and basically told Garry, “You can use this one if you want it, it’s something we can offer right now.”

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No one in the Rox camp thought much of it at the time. The song, after all, was written for the holidays, and didn’t seem suitable for a non-holiday feature film. Garry, however, later followed up with them, proclaiming that he absolutely loved the song, and wished to proceed and use it. As the Look Sharp! tour settled, Roxette agreed to return to the studio and fine-tune the song, adding a few touches, a new piano intro, and removing the Christmas reference (replacing it with the word “winter’s”). With the “grown-up” version ready to go, Garry arranged a splendid spot for it in the movie to give it plenty of attention. As a delightful bonus to the Rox crew, the movie—now called Pretty Woman—hit theaters, and became a monster hit, grossing in $178M in the US, and $463M worldwide. Not bad, on a budget of $14M.

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After multiple smashes on Look Sharp! with “The Look,” “Listen To Your Heart” (both #1 in the US) and “Dangerous” (US #2), their third US #1 was raked in, in the form of “It Must Have Been Love.” Alongside fellow Pretty Woman contribution and ’90 hit song “King Of Wishful Thinking” by Go West, “IMHBL” helped both shape the film into the hit it became, and sell over 7 million units of its soundtrack worldwide. The timing too turned out to be fortunate for Roxette. Their third album, Joyride, wouldn’t actually be finished and released until spring 1991 (much later than expected, but worth it). Look Sharp! dropped in the fall of ’88. But with the momentum of “It Must Have Been Love,” they were able to keep running strong without breaking stride or losing steam.

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With the title track from Joyride giving Rox their fourth and final US #1 in ’91, it’s debatable which of the four is their “biggest” hit—they’re all pretty immensely successful, if from different angles. But what’s not

debatable is “Love”’s superiority of radio airplay. All the song’s plays over the years by now amount to close to 50 years of nonstop airplay. I’ve got four incarnations of the song here, including its demo. Said demo came out on a CD of demos together with the 2007 biography Att vara Per Gessle (Being Per Gessle), written by Swedish journalist Sven Lindström. The demo CD that came with it is entitled Doppade bara tårna (Just dipped my toes): demos 1977-1990. It has no cover art, so in place of it I’ll be using the cover of the book.

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The fourth one has more recently recorded vocals, in Spanish, as part of Roxette’s Baladas en español compilation (a gift to South America for being a huge chunk of their biggest fans globe-wide). The Spanish version’s entitled “No sé si es amor” (“I don’t know if it’s love”). So, four versions, two echo intervals each thanks to its tempo, for a total of eight samples below.

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Also: fifth song included in “The Rox Medley” (see here).

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Have notes to add? Let me know!

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YT:

full demo version (“Christmas For The Broken-Hearted”)

full 1987 studio version (“Christmas For The Broken-Hearted”)

full 1990 studio version

Baladas en español version (“No sé si es amor”)

1987 version music video (“Christmas For The Broken-Hearted”)

1990 version music video

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Rox’s official website