Higher Love - Single Version

This very spiritual song makes a case for why higher love, which can be interpreted as God, must exist. The first line sets the stage: Think about it, there must be higher love One of the key arguments is found in the first verse: Without it, life is a wasted time

Winwood played many of the instruments on Back In The High Life and wrote the music for the songs, but for this and many other songs on the album, Will Jennings wrote the lyrics. Jennings is a very successful songwriter who also collaborated with Winwood on the albums Arc Of A Diver and Talking Back To The Night, and went on to write "My Heart Will Go On" with James Horner for the movie Titanic. Jennings told Songfacts: "I was born in East Texas and my mother and father's families were from Arkansas and the generations before were from the Deep South. My father's father was a Methodist preacher, a circuit rider, in Arkansas. My earliest memories are of the music in church and of my aunts and uncles singing the beautiful old hymns. 'Higher Love' is a generation past that, when things were not so much taken for granted, so that one has to plea, 'Bring me a higher love,' and the lines are all trying to explain why there must be higher love. A modern hymn, you might call it."

This was Winwood's first US #1 single, either as a solo artist or with a group. He was 38 when it topped the chart on August 30, 1986, but he had already been making music for more than two decades. As a teenager, his crystalline voice and songwriting talents led the Spencer Davis Group to two hit singles in 1967: "Gimme Some Lovin'" and "I'm A Man." From there, he veered away from pop with the highly acclaimed groups Traffic and Blind Faith, but honed a more radio-friendly sound with his solo recordings, which started in 1977 with his self-titled album. He got on the airwaves with his singles "While You See a Chance" (1980) and "Valerie," but "Higher Love" was his breakthrough solo hit. He went to the top again in 1988 with "Roll With It."