Love Will Keep Us Alive
“Love Will Keep Us Alive” is a song written by Jim Capaldi, Paul Carrack, and Peter Vale. It was first performed by the Eagles in 1994, during their “Hell Freezes Over” reunion tour, with lead vocals by bassist Timothy B. Schmit.
According to the liner notes that accompanied their 2003 greatest hits CD, this song was written when Carrack, Capaldi, and Schmit were planning to form a band with Don Felder and Max Carl during the late eighties or early nineties. The band had the working name of Malibu Men’s Choir. This never materialized, so Schmit proposed the song for the Eagles’ reunion album. According to Felder, they sent demo tapes to the Eagles manager, Irving Azoff, who rejected it as not good enough. Felder though it ironic that the Eagles would later record one of those rejected songs.
Although the song was never formally released as a single in the US, and thus was not eligible to appear on the Billboard Hot 100 under the rules then in place, it did spend three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard adult contemporary chart in early 1995[5] and was No. 22 on Billboard’s Hot 100 Airplay chart. In the United Kingdom, “Love Will Keep Us Alive” was issued as a single and peaked at No. 52 on the UK Singles Chart.
Aside from being on the album Hell Freezes Over, the song appears on the Eagles’ box set, Selected Works 1972-1999 and the 2003 compilation album, The Very Best Of.
Paul Carrack recorded the song for his 1996 album, Blue Views; it also featured on his 2006 compilation album, Greatest Hits – The Story So Far.
In 2011, Paul Carrack and Timothy B. Schmit recorded the song in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and released it in the UK on the Carrack label.