Peak
6
Weeks
23
Score
3,471
Chart Year
1977
In this sensual song, Donna Summer can "feel" love, experiencing it on a level that transcends words. Her vocal is just the same few lines over and over ("It's so good," "I'm in love"), but she sings them with a conviction that feels spiritual. There was concern that radio stations would hear it as sexual and refuse to play it, but that wasn't a problem. Compared to Summer's moaning in her hit "Love To Love You Baby" from two years earlier, it was rather tame. "I Feel Love" is an electronic music landmark, with a track built entirely on a Moog synthesizer. Giorgio Moroder, a leading light in the genre and a longtime collaborator with Donna Summer, came up with the music. His associate, Pete Bellotte, produced the track with him and wrote the lyrics with Summer. Moroder and Bellotte are responsible for most of Summer's early disco hits. This is the last song on Summer's concept album I Remember Yesterday, where each song gets progressively more modern, starting with the big-band influenced "I Remember Yesterday." "I Feel Love" represents the future. The song was inspired by the jazzy little tune performed by four fish-headed aliens in the Star Wars Cantina scene. When Giorgio Moroder saw the movie, he was taken by how un-futuristic the Cantina band sounded. That served as the initial spark for "I Feel Love." He said: "I didn't think it sounded like the music of the future - it looked like it, but didn't sound like it. So I thought the only way to do it is to do it with computers - only computers." Co-writer Pete Bellotte explained how this song came together in a chat with Independent on Sunday magazine July 1, 2007: "We used a Moog synthesizer to give the song this futuristic feel, and discovered a new way to layer level upon level of sound on to the track in perfect sync. We had no idea it was going to sound so special... Donna was one of those phenomenal one-take artists - she could just come in, sing the song and go. She was always spot on." With its entirely synthesized backing track, "I Feel Love" was enormously influential in the development of disco, electronica and techno music. However, Summer was initially unconvinced. "Giorgio brought me this popcorn track he had recorded," she later recalled, "and I said, 'What the hell is this, Giorgio?'" When producer Brian Eno first listened to this song, he told David Bowie, "I've heard the sound of the future." Speaking to Mojo magazine September 2012 about this song, Giorgio Moroder recalled: "When we mixed it, by accident the engineer added a delay at the same tempo as the beat, which suddenly doubled the speed of the synth pulse. That became the key sound of the record and the signature on my own songs like 'From Here to Eternity' and on things like Sparks' 'The Number One Song in Heaven.'" An extended version running 8:15 was released as a single. The album version, which was also the radio single, runs 5:53, longer than any other Top 10 hit of 1977 except "Hotel California." "I Feel Love" was used in these movies: Frost/Nixon (2008) The Firm (2009) Behind The Candelabra (2013) American Hustle (2013) Trolls (2016) House of Gucci (2021) And these TV shows: Parks and Recreation ("Beauty Pageant" - 2009) Riverdale ("Chapter Six: Faster, Pussycats! Kill! Kill!" - 2017) Blue Man Group performed this on their 2003 The Complex tour and included it on the accompanying album. Their version features Annette Strean of the Tennessee band Venus Hum on vocals. The Blue Man Group interpretation uses their various homemade instruments - those PVC pipe creations they use for percussion. "We thought it would be interesting to take one of the first entirely electronic songs and redo it with real acoustic instruments," they explained.
Ooh it's so good, it's so good It's so good, it's so good It's so good Ooh I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love, I'm in love I'm in love Ooh I feel love, I feel love I feel love, I feel love I feel love I feel love I feel love Ooh fall and free, fall and free Fall and free, fall and free Fall and free Ooh you and me, you and me You and me, you and me You and me Ooh I feel love, I feel love I feel love, I feel love I feel love I feel love I feel love I feel love I feel love
| Week | Chart Date | Position | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aug 6, 1977 | 86 | 40 |
| 2 | Aug 13, 1977 | 64 | 62 |
| 3 | Aug 20, 1977 | 52 | 74 |
| 4 | Aug 27, 1977 | 44 | 82 |
| 5 | Sep 3, 1977 | 40 | 86 |
| 6 | Sep 10, 1977 | 29 | 97 |
| 7 | Sep 17, 1977 | 23 | 103 |
| 8 | Sep 24, 1977 | 16 | 110 |
| 9 | Oct 1, 1977 | 14 | 112 |
| 10 | Oct 8, 1977 | 13 | 113 |
| 11 | Oct 15, 1977 | 9 | 117 |
| 12 | Oct 22, 1977 | 8 | 118 |
| 13 | Oct 29, 1977 | 7 | 119 |
| 14 | Nov 5, 1977 | 7 | 119 |
| 15 | Nov 12, 1977 | 6 | 120 |
| 16 | Nov 19, 1977 | 12 | 114 |
| 17 | Nov 26, 1977 | 16 | 110 |
| 18 | Dec 3, 1977 | 28 | 98 |
| 19 | Dec 10, 1977 | 51 | 75 |
| 20 | Dec 17, 1977 | 57 | 69 |