"65 Love Affair" is a song performed by Paul Davis on his album ''

Cool Night ''Cool Night'' is the seventh and final studio album by singer/songwriter Paul Davis. It was his highest-charting album in the United States, reaching #52 on the Billboard album chart, and yielded three top-40 singles, " Cool Night", " '65 Love A ...

''.

Background

This song marked Davis's second single release upon his departure from

Bang Records Bang Records was created by Bert Berns in 1965 together with his partners from Atlantic Records: Ahmet Ertegun, Nesuhi Ertegun and Jerry Wexler. The first letters of their names (Bert, Ahmet, Nesuhi, Gerald) formed the label's name. Forming the ...

to Arista, the first being "

". The style of "65 Love Affair" was reminiscent of such

blue-eyed soul Blue-eyed soul (also called white soul) is rhythm and blues (R&B) and soul music performed by white artists. The term was coined in the mid-1960s, to describe white artists whose sound was similar to that of the predominantly-black Motown and Stax ...

groups as

Hall & Oates Daryl Hall and John Oates, commonly known as Hall & Oates, are an American pop rock duo formed in Philadelphia in 1970. Daryl Hall is generally the lead vocalist; John Oates primarily plays electric guitar and provides backing vocals. The two ...

, a vein that Davis had not explored before. Davis had originally titled the song "'55 Love Affair", but Arista felt that some modernization was needed to target an audience whose teenage years had occurred in the 1960s, including Davis himself. As Arista pointed out, Davis was only 7 years old in 1955, too young for a "love affair", but was 17 years old in 1965, perfect for the song. Davis's previous hits had been country-oriented or ballads. The format change to pop proved to be quite marketable. "65 Love Affair" and "Cool Night", which were recorded at the same time, ranked first and third in terms of his Hot 100 peaks (" I Go Crazy" ranked second). In spite of this popular success, Davis was so disgusted with the commercialized result that he opted out of his contract with Arista and signed with

Razor & Tie Razor & Tie was an American entertainment company that consisted of a record label and a music publishing company. It was established in 1990 by Craig Balsam and Cliff Chenfeld. Based in New York City (with additional offices in Los Angeles an ...

Record Company, a label on which Davis never charted on the Hot 100.

Music video

The music video is composed entirely of news archives from the year 1965, including footage of then US President

Lyndon Johnson Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969. He had previously served as the 37th vice ...

, the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

, and the Watts riots.

Chart performance

Released in 1982, "65 Love Affair" hit #6 for two weeks on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in May 1982. It spent 20 weeks on the chart, and on the ''Billboard'' Year-End Hot 100 chart, it placed at #39, and on '' Cashbox's'' chart at #60.

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:65 Love Affair 1982 singles Paul Davis (singer) songs Music published by MPL Music Publishing 1981 songs Arista Records singles Songs about nostalgia