This Iconic Love Song Held The No. 1 Spot The Longest In 1977

Debby Boone's career really hit the ground running when she released "You Light Up My Life" as her very first solo single in 1977. While love songs have been a pop cultural staple since forever, from Paul Anka's innocent, syrupy 1959 "Put Your Head On My Shoulder" to Ed Sheeran's massive, 2014 acoustic hit, "Thinking Out Loud," few have left a mark as substantial as Boone's "You Light Up My Life" — at least as far as Billboard charts are concerned. "You Light Up My Life" didn't just reach No. 1 in October 1977, it stayed there for a full 10 weeks. This makes it not just the longest-staying No. 1 song of that year, but places it in an elite, 10-week club that not even the Beatles ever reached.

Leading up to Boone's 1977 hit, the '70s had already seen its fair share of not only hit love songs, but No. 1 hit love songs. Right at the beginning of the decade, Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water" reached No. 1 in 1970, a gospel-infused, platonically-leaning love song about being there for someone in need. The very next year in 1971, Al Green graced us with his ever-groovy, soulful "Let's Stay Together," which also hit No. 1. And of course, 1975 saw Captain and Tennille's piano-driven, poppy "Love Will Keep Us Together" reach No. 1.

None of these songs blew up as explosively as the iconic "You Light Up My Life," however. The string-filled, downtempo, easy-listening track not only held the public captive for weeks and weeks, it single-handedly built Boone's entire career, much to her own surprise. Boone's album "You Light Up My Life," with its barnstorming title track, accounts for over 88% of the nearly 1.2 million albums she ever sold.

On first listen, it might not be obvious why "You Light Up My Life" caught on so well. On paper, the lyrics read like a cliché Hallmark card: "And you / Light up my life / You give me hope / To carry on." And while the chord progression is also somewhat textbook, it's the song's chorus that hooks the listener and conveys the song's feelings. Right when Debby Boone slides into the word "hope" and the song's chords shift to B7, it's easy to hear why the track roused the hearts of so many. Aside from its 10 weeks at No. 1, Boone was nominated for a bunch of awards for the song and won three Grammys because of it, including Best New Artist Of The Year for 1977.

And yet, Boone didn't even write "You Light Up My Life." Filmmaker and songwriter Joseph Brooks wrote the song for the 1977 movie of the same name that he wrote, produced, directed, and even financed. Brooks even used a different singer whom he'd worked with in ad jingles, Kasey Cisyk, to record the song for his film. But after a falling out between the two — allegedly due to Cisyk turning down his advances — Brooks wanted to re-record the vocals on top of the original backing track. Enter Boone, who was once signed to Motown Records in a group with her sisters, The Boones, but was reluctant to step out on her own.

Boone did record "You Light Up My Life," of course, and it was a smash hit. The cliché lyrics, which Boone actually took as a love song to God, no doubt helped the song's mass appeal. As Boone told Entertainment Weekly in 2017, "I can't say how many weddings I've sung that song at."