Foreigner’s Lou Gramm is explaining the disagreement over songwriting credits for “I Want to Know What Love Is.”
In an interview, Gramm explained, “When we were recording that album, at the end of completion of every song, Mick [Jones] and I would sit down at a table, and on a little piece of paper we would write out what we thought the split was for the song between the two of us as writers, and we’d done that from album one. So, like, ‘Hot Blooded’ was 50-50, ‘Double Vision’ was 60 for Mick, 40 for me.”
Gramm says when it came to “I Want to Know What Love Is,” he wrote 60 for Mick, 40 for himself.
He went on to explain, “So I saw him look at my piece of paper, and he didn’t smile or anything; he had [a] stone face on. And I picked up my piece of paper. You know what he had on it? 95-5 for him. I was involved in the melody, in the arrangement of the song, and plus I sang the ad-libs and I sang the hell out of the song. And his best offer was 95-5. I was insulted, I was angry and I knew right away why it was.”
“Because he knew that song was gonna be number one and he wanted it all for himself.” Gramm concluded, “He made millions and millions of dollars off just that song. I didn’t see a nickel.”
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