I Want to Know What Love Is - 1999 Remaster

Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones wrote this song. In a Songfacts interview, he said: "'I Want To Know What Love Is' started off on more of a personal level. I'd been through a lot of relationships that eventually failed, and still searching for something that could really endure. And that sort of took a life of its own as well. It became more of a universal feeling. I adjusted that during the recording of it, and ended up putting a gospel choir on it. And you know, realized suddenly that I'd written almost a spiritual song, almost a gospel song. Sometimes, you feel like you had nothing to do with it, really. You're just putting it down on paper, or coming up with a melody that will bring the meaning of the song out, bring the emotion out in the song." Jones' relationship that sparked the song was with his then future wife Ann Dexter-Jones. Ann Dexter-Jones had previously been married to Laurence Ronson, a music publisher who discovered the British group Bucks Fizz. Their oldest child is the successful producer Mark Ronson, the man behind Amy Winehouse's Back to Black album. Jones raised Ronson from the age of 7, providing a rich musical environment that led to his success. On Foreigner's 2009 album Can't Slow Down, Ronson produced a new version of Foreigner's 1977 track "Fool For You Anyway."

The New Jersey Mass Choir was brought in to sing the backing vocals, becoming the first gospel choir to appear on a #1 pop hit. Mick Jones knew he wanted a choir on the song and found the New Jersey Mass Choir through a bit of serendipity: they had the same lawyer. According to Jones, the choir's first attempts to sing their part in the studio didn't have the magic, but then they gathered in a circle, said the Lord's Prayer, and nailed it on the next take. The New Jersey Mass Choir recorded their own version of the song a short time later, which they included on an album of the same name with their take on contemporary songs like "Yah Mo B There" and "Time After Time." Their rendition of "I Want to Know What Love Is" was released as a single and bubbled under at #101 on the Hot 100 in February 1985, the same month Foreigner's version was #1.

Foreigner recorded for Atlantic Records, and their 1981 album 4 spent more weeks at #1 than any album released by the label. Ahmet Ertegun, who was the head of Atlantic, cried when he first heard this song. Mick Jones explains: "Part of my dream at the beginning was to be on Atlantic Records, because of the heritage: all the R&B stars of the '50s, people like Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin. It meant so much to me and my growing up in music. So it meant a lot to have Ahmet Ertegun, who had been a part of that magical era and a person who I respected and looked up to, come into the studio. I took him aside and I said, 'I have a song to play you, Ahmet.' I took him into the studio, and we just sat there in two chairs, and I put the song on. Halfway through I looked over and indeed, there were tears coming out of his eyes. I thought, Whoa, this is a major moment for me. I've been able to impress this man who has heard some of the best, and produced some of the best music in the world. And here he is, and I've reached him emotionally. By the end of the song we were both in tears. Wonderful moments like that, they're just very meaningful."