This perceptive dissection of love's simplicities is the first single from English musician Peter Gabriel's eighth studio and fourteenth album overall, Scratch My Back. The record consists of Gabriel covering twelve songs by various artists, using orchestra and voice rather than normal rock instruments. Gabriel's plan was for another album, I'll Scratch Yours, to be released at a later date, on which the twelve artists that the former Genesis frontman covered in turn perform one of his tracks.
This song is Gabriel's cover of a Magnetic Fields song from their 1999 three-volume concept album, 69 Love Songs. The Magnetic Fields is the principal creative outlet of singer-songwriter Stephin Merritt and "The Book of Love" is backed by Merritt's cover of Gabriel's "Not One Of Us." The single was released digitally on January 30, 2010, the day of January 2010's full moon.
Gabriel originally recorded this song for the soundtrack of the 2004 movie Shall We Dance.
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