WCSX Classic Cuts : Keep on Loving You
WCSX Classic Cuts
REO Speedwagon: “Keep on Loving You”
The Hook: It came rolling out of singer Kevin Cronin “like it was already there.”
Year: 1980
Album: Hi Infidelity
Writer: Kevin Cronin
Stats: The band’s first Top 50 track on the Billboard Hot 100 also was their first chart-topper. It peaked at number-nine on Billboard’s Top Rock Tracks chart, as well.
Background: REO Speedwagon’s “Keep on Loving You” is the both the 500th song to go to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and the 17th song played on the first day MTV was on the air. Singer Kevin Cronin describes how easy it was for him to write it.
REO Speedwagon singer Kevin Cronin on writing “Keep on Loving You.” OC:…Loving You. :24
“I’d just woken up in the middle of the night and stumbled down the studio, and that song pretty much was what was happening in my life at the time, like most of my songs are. And I just sat down at the piano and started playing these chords and the lyrics just really rolled right out, like they were already there or something. It all rhymed and it was all just sitting there. It was one of those lucky ones. I kind of feel like these songs are out there somewhere and it’s just a matter of capturing them, and that’s really what happened with ‘Keep On Loving You.'”
