Producer Jon Peters and director Franco Zeffirelli asked Lionel Richie to compose an instrumental along the lines of the theme from “Love Story” for their movie starring Brooke Shields. When Zeffirelli changed his mind and asked Richie if he would add lyrics, the Motown star agreed to write some. Then Zeffirelli made one more request – to add a female singer, someone like Diana Ross.

When the members of Boyz II Men first heard Babyface’s composition “I’ll Make Love to You,” they were concerned about recording a song that was too similar to their previous hit, “End of the Road.” Nathan Morris explains, “The record company talked us into doing it and thank God it worked.”

When the Stax label folded, the three Hutchinson sisters had to find a new home. They were signed to a production company run by Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire. With group member Al McKay, White wrote this song specifically for them and the lead voice of Wanda Hutchinson.

McCartney wrote “My Love” about one of the members of his post-Beatles band, Wings. The inspiration for the sentimental ballad was Scarsdale, N.Y.-born Linda Louise Eastman, a professional photographer before she married McCartney on March 12, 1969.

Barry and Robin Gibb wrote the song for Streisand but the former told Billboard he gives the artist most of the credit. “At least 80 per cent of the success of the record belongs to her.”

Barry, Robin and Maurice Gibb hadn’t seen the script for the movie that became “Saturday Night Fever” when they wrote “How Deep Is Your Love” for the soundtrack. They weren’t even certain that there was a love scene in the film. They intended the song for Yvonne Elliman, but their manager Robert Stigwood insisted they record it themselves.

Houston’s signature song was originally a No. 1 hit for the woman who composed the tune, Dolly Parton. Her version topped the Hot Country Songs chart in 1974 and again in 1982.

Back in 1958, Don Gibson wrote two songs one hot afternoon in Knoxville, Tenn. – “Oh Lonesome Me” and “I Can’t Stop Loving You.” Four years later, Charles only needed to hear the first two lines of the latter before deciding to record it for his album “Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music.”

After viewing the film “Up Close and Personal,” Diane Warren met with director Jon Avnet to talk about her vision of the song she was to compose for his movie. The next morning in her office, she recalls, “The chorus lyrically and musically wrote itself.”

Her first album was being mastered when Carey played a demo of this song for label president Don Ienner aboard a plane. Carey was told the song was a “career-maker” and despite her protests, the presses were stopped and the song was added to her debut release.

What could be more romantic than finding love in a “hopeless place”? Rihanna scored the biggest hit of her career (and the top ‘love’ song of the 21st century) with only her fourth Hot 100 entry to feature “love” in the title, following “If It’s Lovin’ That You Want” (2005), “Hate That I Love You” (2007) and her featured role on Eminem’s “Love the Way You Lie” (2010).

Mario didn’t realize this song was going to be so huge. “I didn’t know it would touch so many people,” he says. “But it was an emotional song and those records last forever.”

Ryan Tedder and Jesse McCartney wrote the song, inspired by the latter’s long-distance romance with his girlfriend. McCartney wanted the song for himself but his label was unenthusiastic so it went to the winner of the third season of “The X Factor” in the U.K.

Phil Spector was inspired to write the song by a photograph of his father’s tombstone at Beth David Cemetery in New York. The inscription read: “To Know Him Was to Love Him.”

The first single from Beyoncé’s first post-Destiny’s Child album (“Dangerously in Love”) became the first No. 1 of her solo career. “I asked Jay to get on the song the night before I had to turn my album in,” Beyoncé told Billboard. “Thank God he did. It still never gets old, no matter how many times I sing it.”