The great Boudleaux Bryant wrote “Love Hurts” for the Everly Brothers in 1960.
“Love is like a stove,” he wrote. “It burns you when it’s hot.”
Other artists took a crack at that song after the Everlys, like Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, but it was Scottish band Nazareth who stunned the world with their power ballad version in 1974. Theirs was the first version of the song I heard, and I was always resentful of one lyric which, it turns out, they’d changed:
“Love is like a flame,” said Nazareth. “It burns you when it’s hot.”
Jesus Christ, Nazareth. It’s a flame. Of course it’s hot.
Fogelfoot did a Spanish version of “Love Hurts” in the June, 2022 HUUT, featuring Marty Barrett, Tom Bishel, and Fish Olmos. The lyrics, penned by the Mexican band Grupo Yndio, got mauled a bit, but Grupo Yndio maintained Nazareth’s kick-ass arrangement without recommitting a Language Crime.
Here’s Fogelfoot’s version.
