Love Is Like A Rock – Donnie Iris | Top 40 Chart Performance, Story and Song Meaning
Chart Performance: Pop (#37) & Mainstream Rock (#1); 1982
Story Behind The Song By Ed Osborne
After a several year run with the Jaggerz, Donnie Iris signed on with Wild Cherry. His stay was short: the band dissolved after just one album that with Donnie on board, 1979’s Only The Wild Survive.
All was not lost, however. In Wild Cherry Donnie met his future collaborator, Mark Avsec. The two formed Donnie and The Cruisers, and promptly hit the album chart with Back On The Streets and placed Ah! Leah! on the singles list.
A blistering live performance at Toronto’s El Mocambo club inspired a reviewer to name Donnie the “new king of cool:” an accolade that graced the cover of the Cruisers’ sophomore album.
Album radio immediately got behind King Cool’s lead-off track, Sweet Merilee; boosting it to #31 in the mainstream rock rankings. The next single did even better.
Love Is Like A Rock began as an instrumental track built around a Marty Lee guitar riff to which Mark and Donnie wrote lyrics using Mark’s catch-phrase title as a jumping-off point.
This content and all Song Meaning articles were created and written by Top 40 Contributing Editor Ed Osborne. © 2024 Ed Osborne. All Rights Reserved. In addition to these song meaning articles, Ed has written our “Year in Music 1960s-1990s” articles.
Produced by:
- Mark Avsec
Lyrics Written by:
- Mark Avsec
- Donnie Iris
- Marty Lee Hoenes
- Albritton McClain
- Kevin Valentine
Ed Osborne
Hi. I got my first record at age two and never looked back, spending a decades-long career in radio and the music business. Even after years of reading about and listening to all types of music, I am still fascinated by it. Apart from that, I’m endlessly intrigued by art, nature, and the inner lives of people (and dogs).