Will to Power – Baby I Love Your Way

“Baby, I Love Your Way/Freebird Medley” – Single by Will to Power from the album Will to Power. Released August 1988.

Chrted: No. 6 – UK Singles (OCC), No 1 – US Billboard Hot 100, No. 2 – US Adult Contemporary (Billboard), No. 18 – West Germany (Official German Charts).

“Baby, I Love Your Way/Freebird Medley (Free Baby)” is a song by American dance-pop band Will to Power. The song combines elements of two previously recorded rock songs: “Baby, I Love Your Way”, a number-12 Billboard Hot 100 hit from 1976 by British-born singer Peter Frampton, and “Free Bird” by American Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, which reached number 19 on the Hot 100 chart in 1975. Suzi Carr is the female vocalist and a producer for the song.

Songs can have weird lives. Consider what happened with Peter Frampton’s “Baby, I Love Your Way” and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird,” two entries in the grand pantheon of ’70s lighters-up arena-rock power ballads. Both of those songs were hits, but neither one made the top 10. Lynyrd Skynyrd and Frampton both sold millions upon millions of records, but neither one ever managed to land a #1 hit. When both of those songs were more than a decade old, though, a Miami DJ and dance producer combined both tracks into one ungainly beast, and he wound up with a #1 hit.

Those two ’70s power ballads have endured; “Free Bird,” in particular, is now part of the American cultural fabric. The 1988 single that fused the two songs has totally faded from memory. Still, the Miami producer’s version was a much bigger chart hit than either of the originals. From a narrative standpoint, this makes no sense. But that’s what happened. Chart history so rarely makes sense.

In the United States, the medley spent one week at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and also peaked at number two on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. Internationally, the song topped the Canadian, Norwegian, and Portuguese charts and reached the top 20 in Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and West Germany. In March and April 2009, VH1 ran a countdown of the 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 80s, placing it at number 97 on the countdown despite the group having another US top-10 hit in 1991 with a cover version of the 1975 10cc hit “I’m Not in Love.”

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Will to Power - Baby I Love Your Way (Official Video)04:09

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