Released March 1974 (U.S.) Recorded January 1974 Length 2:21 | Format 7" Genre Country | |
B-side "Love the Second Time Around" | ||
"Pure Love" is a song recorded by American country music singer Ronnie Milsap. It was released in March 1974 as the first single and title track from the album Pure Love. The song was Milsap's first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in the late spring of the year. Although Milsap had two previous top 15 hits—"I Hate You" and "That Girl Who Waits on Tables," both 1973—"Pure Love" is largely credited as being his career-breaking hit.
The song also marked the first country chart-topping single by its writer, Eddie Rabbitt, who had tasted previous success with 1970's "Kentucky Rain" by Elvis Presley. In the song, Rabbitt compares "pure love" to such things as milk, honey and the Cap'n Crunch breakfast cereal, before pointing out that the love shared between the protagonist and his/her object of affection is "99 44⁄100 percent pure" (borrowing from the old Ivory soap advertising slogan).
Rabbitt would later record the song as the B-side to his 1975 single "Forgive and Forget".