Released June 3, 1998 Recorded 1997 Writer(s) Ben Watt, Tracey Thorn | Format CD single Genre Pop, dance, house | |
"Troubled Girl"
(1998) "Looking for Love"
(1998) | ||
"I Didn't Know I Was Looking for Love" is a song written by Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn of Everything but the Girl. The song was originally released by them in 1993 as a track on the EP of the same title reaching number 72 in the UK Albums Chart. It has been covered by Meja in 1996, Karen Ramirez in 1998, Jay Lopez in 2004 and by Sitti Navarro in 2006.
Karen Ramirez version: "Looking for Love"
The song was covered by British singer Karen Ramirez and released as her second single in 1998 with the shorter title of "Looking for Love". This version is the most well-known, peaking at number eight on the UK Singles Chart in June 1998, and topping the U.S. Hot Dance Club Play chart in 2001. Ramirez's version of the song was well received and garnered mainly positive reviews from critics. Coincidentally, while Ramirez never denied that the song was a cover version of an Everything but the Girl release, her version also drew comments from UK music critics of the era for its similarity to another Everything but the Girl release, "Missing", from 1995, as well as The Corrs' 1998 cover version of Fleetwood Mac's song "Dreams", both of which were remixed and produced by Todd Terry. Despite having several of the same Todd Terry hallmarks as the two aforementioned songs (most notably, a standalone introduction edited into the main song, and a recurring synth loop combined with a prominent drumbeat), contrary to popular belief in the UK music press at the time Todd Terry had no involvement whatsoever in Ramirez's record.
In addition to extensive dance club and radio airplay, the music video for the song (which featured Ramirez walking around a house on a continuous loop, each time seeing previous versions of herself walking around the house) also enjoyed heavy rotation on both MTV and VH-1 throughout the summer of 1998.