“Marti Pellow in a kilt! Be still my beating heart”, tweeted one viewer of the BBC’s recent Comic Relief charity telethon. Others bemoaned the reappearance of “the ambassador of cheese” as Pellow blew the cobwebs off his group Wet Wet Wet’s 1994 hit “Love Is All Around”.
Recorded for the soundtrack of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Wet Wet Wet’s version of the song spent 15 weeks at the top of the British charts (Pellow’s recent TV appearance tied in with a Comic Relief 25th anniversary “sequel” to the film). But reactions to the song’s sweet sentiment, relentlessly circular melody and Pellow’s crooning delivery are still deeply divided.
“Love Is All Around” was written in 1967 by Reg Presley, frontman of The Troggs. The Hampshire band formed in the early 1960s, were signed by The Kinks’ manager Larry Page in 1965 and released their hit cover of Chip Taylor’s “Wild Thing” in 1966, thrilling both British and American audiences with a primal stomp and snarl that would later see them hailed by influential rock critic Lester Bangs as “the progenitors of punk”.
For Presley — a former bricklayer, born Reg Ball and rebranded without his consent by a cheeky publicist — the band’s sudden success felt like “walking on the Moon”. But, following a long tour, it was a quiet Sunday at his home in Andover that inspired their next hit.
In 2012 he told the BBC that he was enjoying the smell of a roast dinner cooking and the sight of his four-year-old daughter playing when the Joystrings Salvation Army Band appeared on the television, “doing their bit with the tambourine, singing about love, love, love… It just felt right.”
Presley began tinkering in D major: historically the “key of glory” for classical composers, but more recently pop’s key of uncomplicated romance. You’ll find it used in wedding favourites from Pachelbel’s Canon (late 17th century) to Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” (2014). Presley knocked out his melody in 20 minutes and called bandmate Chris Allen to say: “I think I’ve seen our next hit.” Decked out in pretty strings with a tick-tock percussion, the song peaked at number 5 on the UK chart and 7 on America’s Hot 100 in 1968.
Although they kept gigging, The Troggs fell from favour in the 1970s and 80s. But R.E.M.’s gentle excavation of “Love Is All Around”, recorded live, as the B-side to their 1991 single “Radio Song”, motivated a comeback album and tour for the ’60s band. R.E.M.’s bassist took over vocal duties on their folksy version as frontman Michael Stipe wasn’t sold on the song. But it’s Stipe’s haunted backing vocals that rescue their cover from cuteness.
Three years later, screenwriter Richard Curtis sent the song as a list of three potential covers for Wet Wet Wet to record for his second movie, Four Weddings and a Funeral. The Scottish soft rockers threw electric guitars and some soulful vocal welly at it. Presley had just poured himself a cup of tea when he first heard it and later recalled that when he heard the group’s chords, “Wham, I spilled tea all over the room!”
As Curtis’s film became the highest grossing British film at the time, its theme tune soared to the top of the chart. And stayed there — spawning Spanish and Swedish covers — until the band felt the mood changing. Jarvis Cocker appeared on the BBC chart show Top of the Pops and opened his jacket to reveal a sign reading: “I hate Wet Wet Wet”. Eventually the band withdrew it from sale.
Pellow, talking to The Guardian in 2015, remembered going to a cinema in Glasgow at the height of the song’s success when “The trailer for Four Weddings started running and ‘Love Is All Around’ came on. I heard the guy behind go: ‘God, not that song again!’ I turned round and said: ‘Hey, imagine how I feel!’ In the last week before we withdrew it from production, it was still selling 120,000 copies a week. We were thinking: ‘Who is even buying it now?’ Withdrawing it from sale wasn’t some cunning plan to make it sell more — we’re not that smart. It was just time to put the song to bed.”
It remains Britain’s best-selling love ballad. Presley famously spent a large percentage of the royalties on his research into UFOs and crop circles. In his later years he also investigated the health benefits of ingesting powdered gold, like the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs. He died of lung cancer in 2013. “Love Is All Around” was played at his funeral.
‘Love Is All Around’: love it, or loathe it? Let us know in the comments section below.
‘The Life of a Song Volume 2: The fascinating stories behind 50 more of the world’s best-loved songs’, edited by David Cheal and Jan Dalley, is published by Brewer’s.
Music credits: Virgin EMI; K-Tel; Craft Recordings
Picture credit: Michael Putland/Getty Images