I Think I Love You
Encyclopedia
"I Think I Love You" is a 1970 single
by The Partridge Family
, featuring David Cassidy
, composed by songwriter Tony Romeo
. The song was released at the same time as the debut of the network television sitcom The Partridge Family. During the show's first season the song was featured on the show twice as it was climbing the actual Billboard charts. The song hit number one on the U.S. Billboard Pop Singles chart and in Canada
on the RPM 100
national Top Singles chart in November of that year and #1 in Australia and New Zealand in 1971.
The only cast members of the television show to actually participate in the recording of the song were David Cassidy and Shirley Jones
. The music on the song was played by veteran studio musicians such as Hal Blaine
, Larry Knechtel
, Joe Osborn
e, Louie Shelton, Tommy Tedesco
, and others.
, with Nick Perito
's orchestra, at the International Hotel
in Las Vegas, Nevada
. The song was released by RCA Victor Records on an album
, It's Impossible
, in December 1970, and reissued in 1975. RCA also released the recording on an EP in Mexico
in 1971. Andy Williams released his version on 1971's Love Story LP. It was also released on the import The Very Best Of Andy Williams in 2009.
In 1971, a French-language cover by Georges Guétary
was released, entitled "Papa Je T'aime" ("Papa, I Love You"); unlike the original version, this version is a salute to a child's father.
In 1974, Betty Chung (鍾玲玲), a female Hong Kong
singer, covered the song on her LP album Betty Chung.
In 1991, alternative rock
band Voice of the Beehive
covered the song on their album Honey Lingers
. Released as a single in the UK, their version hit number 25 on the UK Singles Chart
.
In 1992, the group Nice & Smooth
sampled the intro from the Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You" in their rap hit, "Hip Hop Junkies".
Florida
-based band Less Than Jake
covered the song, and their version was included on the soundtrack to the 1997 film Scream 2
.
Clam Abuse
covered the song as the first proper song for their debut album "Stop Thinking" in 1999. A recent re-issue also contains a remix of the cover.
American pop singer Kaci released her version as a single in 2002, hitting number 10 on the UK Singles Chart.
In 2002, Katie Cassidy
recorded her dad's hit. She was 15 at the time (five years younger than her dad when he recorded his version).
Paul Westerberg
covered it in 2004, and in 2005, as did Constantine Maroulis
and Katie Cassidy (David's daughter). A section of the song appears towards the end of Westerberg's 2008 release 49:00.
David Cassidy himself did a soul
remake of the song in 2003 for the album Touch of Blue.
Declan Galbraith
covered it in 2007 on his album, You and Me.
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
by The Partridge Family
The Partridge Family
The Partridge Family is an American television sitcom about a widowed mother and her five children who embark on a music career. The series originally ran from September 25, 1970 until August 31, 1974, the last new episode airing on March 23, 1974, on the ABC network, as part of a Friday-night lineup...
, featuring David Cassidy
David Cassidy
David Bruce Cassidy is an American actor, singer, songwriter and guitarist. He is best known for his role as the character of Keith Partridge in the 1970s musical/sitcom The Partridge Family. He was one of pop culture's most celebrated teen idols, enjoying a successful pop career in the 1970s, and...
, composed by songwriter Tony Romeo
Tony Romeo
Tony Romeo was an American songwriter. He is famous for writing the No.1 hit "I Think I Love You" by The Partridge Family as well as many other hit records, mostly during the 1960s and 1970s....
. The song was released at the same time as the debut of the network television sitcom The Partridge Family. During the show's first season the song was featured on the show twice as it was climbing the actual Billboard charts. The song hit number one on the U.S. Billboard Pop Singles chart and in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
on the RPM 100
RPM (magazine)
RPM was a Canadian music industry publication that featured song and album charts for Canada. The publication was founded by Walt Grealis in February 1964, supported through its existence by record label owner Stan Klees. RPM ceased publication in November 2000.RPM stood for "Records, Promotion,...
national Top Singles chart in November of that year and #1 in Australia and New Zealand in 1971.
The only cast members of the television show to actually participate in the recording of the song were David Cassidy and Shirley Jones
Shirley Jones
Shirley Mae Jones is an American singer and actress of stage, film and television. In her six decades of television, she starred as wholesome characters in a number of well-known musical films, such as Oklahoma! , Carousel , and The Music Man...
. The music on the song was played by veteran studio musicians such as Hal Blaine
Hal Blaine
Hal Blaine is an American drummer and session musician. He is most known for his work with the Wrecking Crew in California. Blaine played on numerous hits by popular groups, including Elvis Presley, John Denver, the Ronettes, Simon & Garfunkel, the Carpenters, the Beach Boys, Nancy Sinatra, and...
, Larry Knechtel
Larry Knechtel
Lawrence William "Larry" Knechtel was an American keyboard player and bassist, best known for his work as a session musician with such artists as Simon & Garfunkel, Duane Eddy, The Beach Boys, The Mamas & the Papas, The Partridge Family, The Doors, and Elvis Presley, and as a member of the 1970s...
, Joe Osborn
Joe Osborn
Joe Osborn is an American bass guitar virtuoso, notable for his work as a session musician in Los Angeles and Nashville during the period from the 1960s through the 1980s. Osborn's work is widely admired by fellow musicians.Osborn began his career working in local clubs, then played on a hit...
e, Louie Shelton, Tommy Tedesco
Tommy Tedesco
Thomas J. Tedesco was an American master session musician and renowned jazz and bebop guitarist.Tedesco's credits include the iconic brand-burning accompaniment theme from television's Bonanza, The Twilight Zone, Vic Mizzy's iconic theme from Green Acres, M*A*S*H, Batman, and Elvis Presley's '68...
, and others.
Cover versions
On November 25, 1970, "I Think I Love You" was recorded by Perry ComoPerry Como
Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with them in 1943. "Mr...
, with Nick Perito
Nick Perito
Nicholas Perito was a Hollywood composer and arranger and, for 40 years, the closest collaborator of singer Perry Como.-Early years:...
's orchestra, at the International Hotel
Las Vegas Hilton
The Las Vegas Hilton is a hotel, casino, and convention center in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is a joint venture between Colony Capital, which owns 60 percent, and New York City-based REIT Whitehall Street Real Estate Funds, which owns the remaining 40 percent...
in Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas, Nevada
Las Vegas is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and is also the county seat of Clark County, Nevada. Las Vegas is an internationally renowned major resort city for gambling, shopping, and fine dining. The city bills itself as The Entertainment Capital of the World, and is famous...
. The song was released by RCA Victor Records on an album
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
, It's Impossible
It's Impossible (album)
It's Impossible was Perry Como's 19th RCA Victor 12" long-play album, the 17th recorded in full "living" stereophonic sound.It's Impossible was recorded quickly to be an album to go with Como's surprise number one single, "It's Impossible"....
, in December 1970, and reissued in 1975. RCA also released the recording on an EP in Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
in 1971. Andy Williams released his version on 1971's Love Story LP. It was also released on the import The Very Best Of Andy Williams in 2009.
In 1971, a French-language cover by Georges Guétary
Georges Guétary
Georges Guétary, born Lambros Worloou was a French singer, dancer, cabaret performer and film actor, best known his role in the 1951 musical An American in Paris.-Early life and career:...
was released, entitled "Papa Je T'aime" ("Papa, I Love You"); unlike the original version, this version is a salute to a child's father.
In 1974, Betty Chung (鍾玲玲), a female Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
singer, covered the song on her LP album Betty Chung.
In 1991, alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
band Voice of the Beehive
Voice of the Beehive
Voice of the Beehive is an Anglo-American alternative pop rock band formed in London in 1986 by Californian sisters Tracey Bryn and Melissa Brooke Belland, daughters of The Four Preps singer, Bruce Belland.- Career :...
covered the song on their album Honey Lingers
Honey Lingers
Honey Lingers is the second album from alternative rock band Voice of the Beehive. Released in 1991 on London Records, the album earned positive reviews from music critics and was a success on U.S. college radio stations....
. Released as a single in the UK, their version hit number 25 on the UK Singles Chart
UK Singles Chart
The UK Singles Chart is compiled by The Official Charts Company on behalf of the British record-industry. The full chart contains the top selling 200 singles in the United Kingdom based upon combined record sales and download numbers, though some media outlets only list the Top 40 or the Top 75 ...
.
In 1992, the group Nice & Smooth
Nice & Smooth
Nice & Smooth was an East Coast hip hop duo from New York that consists of Greg Nice and Smooth B . The duo released four albums from the late 1980s to the mid 1990s...
sampled the intro from the Partridge Family's "I Think I Love You" in their rap hit, "Hip Hop Junkies".
Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
-based band Less Than Jake
Less Than Jake
Less Than Jake is an American ska punk band from Gainesville, Florida. Originally formed in 1992 as a power pop trio, the band evolved into a hybrid of ska punk. Less Than Jake have also been cited as showing influences from a wide variety of genres including post-grunge, heavy metal, alternative...
covered the song, and their version was included on the soundtrack to the 1997 film Scream 2
Scream 2
Scream 2 is a 1997 American slasher film created and written by Kevin Williamson and directed by Wes Craven, starring Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, Jamie Kennedy and Liev Schreiber, released on December 12, 1997 as the second installment in the Scream film series...
.
Clam Abuse
Clam Abuse
Clam Abuse was the title of a collaborative side project of Ginger, of Wildhearts, and Alex Kane, of Life, Sex & Death. The band also featured Prodigy live-drummer Kieron Pepper....
covered the song as the first proper song for their debut album "Stop Thinking" in 1999. A recent re-issue also contains a remix of the cover.
American pop singer Kaci released her version as a single in 2002, hitting number 10 on the UK Singles Chart.
In 2002, Katie Cassidy
Katie Cassidy
Katherine Evelyn Anita "Katie" Cassidy is an American actress who has performed in The CW TV series Melrose Place, Supernatural, Harper's Island, and Gossip Girl, and on the films When a Stranger Calls, Black Christmas, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Taken, Monte Carlo, and has roles in the upcoming...
recorded her dad's hit. She was 15 at the time (five years younger than her dad when he recorded his version).
Paul Westerberg
Paul Westerberg
Paul Westerberg is an American musician, best known as the former lead singer, rhythm guitarist, and songwriter of The Replacements, one of the seminal alternative rock bands of the 1980s. He launched a solo career after the dissolution of that band...
covered it in 2004, and in 2005, as did Constantine Maroulis
Constantine Maroulis
Constantine James Maroulis is an American rock singer, actor, and writer from Wyckoff, New Jersey. He was the sixth-place finalist on the fourth season of the reality television series American Idol, and lead vocalist of the hard rock band Pray for the Soul of Betty...
and Katie Cassidy (David's daughter). A section of the song appears towards the end of Westerberg's 2008 release 49:00.
David Cassidy himself did a soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
remake of the song in 2003 for the album Touch of Blue.
Declan Galbraith
Declan Galbraith
Declan John Galbraith is an English singer. He is best known for his 2002 hit single, "Tell Me Why", which peaked at #29 in the UK Singles Chart.-Early influence:...
covered it in 2007 on his album, You and Me.