Both these songs were on the radio incessantly between 1981 and 1985. On every request show with soppy request messages “from the Hindu College guy in the green kurta and dark glasses on the Hauz Khas U-Special to the Miranda House girl in yellow blouse and jeans – I’ve been waiting…”..you get the gist I’m sure?. Every teenager who listened to ‘A Date With You’ pretty much knew the lyrics by heart. Some of us as a guilty pleasure, never acknowledging that we listened to anything other than Deep Purple. However, start the song and even today, 40 years later, I know the lyrics to both songs by heart. A romantic am I ?

The band formed in ’76 as six musicians came together, quite by chance, in NYC – Mick Jones, Al Greenwood, Ian McDonald, Dennis Elliott, Lou Gramm and Ed Gagliardi. Three of these were Brits – Jones, McDonald and Elliott. The other three were Yanks – Greenwood, Gramm and Gagliardi. While deciding a name for band, they figured out that no matter where they would be in the world, at least half of them would be foreigners – and so named themselves Foreigner!

The amazing things is that these songs came from a band that was well known as a hard rock band – remember songs like ‘Hot Blooded’, ‘Cold As Ice’ and ‘Urgent’? They were famous by the time 1981 rolled around, and were playing arenas of 200,000 adoring fans. And then, completely out of the blue came “Waiting for a Girl Like You”. A power ballad to beat all power ballads…a song to make men weep and women swoon?☺️. It is quite a song, to be fair, and it was hugely popular, and not just in Dilli ! In the US it set the record for being #2 on the charts for 10 weeks – held back by ONJ’s ‘Physical’. And BTW, the synth at the start of the song is an unknown Thomas Dolby!

And then three years later, Foreigner finally struck gold with “I Want To Know What Love Is”. The only way they could top a huge power ballad was to do (power ballad)^2 ! And boy did they go up an order of magnitude, finally getting their only #1! Lou Gramm’s vocals and Mick Jones’ lyrics are magical – hurt, vulnerability, wonder, mystery, frustration  – all at the same time. Jones had just decided to get married for the second time after a tough divorce, and one night wrote out the song while his fiancé slept. Feeling the chill of the muses having visited him, all mushy, he woke up his fiancé and played her the song. Her (laughing) response – “what do you meant you want to know what love is? We are about to get married soon”…(in another movie that would be the signal for Defcon 3 ?) .

Enjoy the ballads! ‘I Want To Know What Love Is’ has been viewed only 193M times so far….go on, you romantic, you ?