When you hear “Love is all” you are probably more reminded of something the Beatles may have done rather then a bunch of Hard Rock and Heavy Metal artists. Yet that is exactly who were involved in the creation of this beautiful, colourful even fairytale like tale and melody.
The song was released in 1974 and was written and composed by Jon Lord of Deep Purple and Eddie Hardin of the Spencer Davis group. The song was taken from the concept album “The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast” which featured artists like David Coverdale(Whitesnake) Glenn Hughes(Deep Purple & Black Sabbath) Les Binks(Judas Priest) Jon Lord(Deep Purple) and many more.
In 1973 Roger Glover left Deep Purple because of work pressure and tensions between him and Ritchie Blackmore. Together with Jon Lord he worked on a solo project. Their plan was to make a rock opera based on William Plomer and Alan Aldridge’s book The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast , in itself based on the eponymous poem by British historian William Roscoe.
Eddie Hardin wrote the song Love Is All based on a song featured in The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast named Love’s all you need, which was inspired by The Beatles’ song All You Need Is Love (1967). The song was sung by Ronnie James Dio, although the single was credited to Glover. The B-side was Old Blind Mole/Magician Moth.
I always presumed that the song had been a global hit, but it only reached the no 1 position in the Dutch and Belgian charts.
The song came with an animated music video featuring a guitar playing frog gathering animals in the forest for the upcoming ball. The animation was created by the Halas and Batchelor studio and one of the animators was Harold Whitaker. The video received a lot of airplay over the decades, particularly as a fill-in during technical difficulties, such as on the French TV channel Antenne 2, and in the United States in children’s TV programs such as The Great Space Coaster and Nickelodeon morning shows. Those random airings, together with the psychedelic tone of the clip and the lack of subtitles, made it very popular amongst young viewers.
In 1980, the video was featured on the Australian music show Countdown, and the song entered the Australian Top 10.The video was also used regularly as an interstitial program on Australia’s ABC TV.
The song was covered by Sacha Distel in 1976. In 2002, Flemish singer Dana Winner released a cover version. Other artists who covered the song have been Gonzales (2008), Keedz (2010) and Playing for Change (2013).
But the original is still the best.
History of Sorts 