Musical Monday - Endless Love by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross

#1 on the Billboard Hot 100: August 15, 1981 through October 10, 1981.

#1 on the Cash Box Top 100: August 15, 1981 through October 10, 1981.

#1 on the U.K. Chart: Never.

During the last half of 1981, American popular music was completely dominated by three songs. The first of those three to make its run was the Lionel Richie penned duet Endless Love. The song was used as the theme song for a relatively mediocre movie of the same name, but despite being tied to that anchor the song was a dominant force in popular music, spending nine weeks at the top of both the Billboard and Cash Box charts and receiving Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for "Best Original Song", as well as five Grammy Award nominations.

One of the odd quirks about the song is just how much it diverges in tone from the movie that it was supposed to represent. In the hands of Lionel Richie and Diana Ross, Endless Love is a sweet, almost syrupy romantic love song. One could credibly argue that the song has become one of the most iconic romantic love songs of all time, used for countless weddings and anniversaries.

The movie Endless Love, on the other hand, is a story about obsessive and destructive "love" gone horribly wrong. In his pursuit of the object of his obsession, the male lead in the story burns his girlfriend's house down and causes her father's death, all to evade what was to be a thirty day hiatus in the relationship between he and his girlfriend that was being enforced by her parents. In the end, he ends up in prison for what appears to be an extended stay. The story in the movie is decidedly unromantic, and probably wouldn't inspire anyone's wedding ceremony.

Perhaps that difference is why the song is remembered to very fondly, and the movie . . . well, the movie is not.

Previous Musical Monday: Theme from the Greatest American Hero by Joey Scarbury

Subsequent Musical Monday: Japanese Boy by Aneka

Previous #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Jessie's Girl by Rick Springfield

Subsequent #1 on the Billboard Hot 100: Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do) by Christopher Cross

Previous #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Theme from the Greatest American Hero by Joey Scarbury

Subsequent #1 on the Cash Box Top 100: Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do) by Christopher Cross

List of #1 Singles from the Billboard Hot 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles from the Cash Box Top 100 for 1980-1989
List of #1 Singles on the U.K. Chart for 1980-1989

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