“Love Will Find its Way to You”
Reba McEntire
Written by Dave Loggins and J.D. Martin
Radio & Records
#1 (1 week)
March 11, 1988
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
April 2, 1988
“Love Will Find its Way to You” was first recorded by Marie Osmond on her 1985 album, There’s No Stopping Your Heart.
Lee Greenwood then covered it in 1986, making it the title track of his album but leaving it as an album cut, just like Osmond did.
I have to ask: Why on earth did Reba McEntire, reigning CMA Entertainer of the Year, attach herself to this castaway? It’s not a very good song, and McEntire can’t even fake an interest in it. It’s telling that Osmond’s version of the song is the only one that sounds sincere and fully engaged, because this is a pop-flavored song that Osmond knows how to navigate.
But McEntire was still waving the new traditionalist flag in 1987, and she can’t bring herself to sing a pop hook. So we get an already bland chorus delivered in near monotone.
Labels have never been crazy about releasing back-to-back ballads to radio, especially from a female artist. Still, “The Stairs” would’ve been a much more compelling second single from The Last One to Know, and it would’ve beaten Martina McBride to the radio by seven years if MCA had stiffened their resolve and released it.
We got this boring slice of warmed over pop country instead. At least it’s better than the Lee Greenwood version.
“Love Will Find its Way to You” gets a C.
Every No. 1 Single of the Eighties
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I always liked the message of the song . This was one of my favorites when I was a teen, and I still like it now, but it is one of her songs that is just not Reba. I’d still give it a sold B!
A C is probably generous; arguably the most generic chart topper in her canon and one of her weakest singles ever. I haven’t listened to The Last One to Know in years, but I suspect any other album cut off the record would’ve been better than this one.
@Chris, I’ve listened to it recently and this song is the most generic and boring. “The Stairs” as mentioned in the article, “The Girl Who Has Everything”, “I Don’t Want To Mention Any Names”, “Just Across The Rio Grande” or the closing ballad “I’ve Still Got The Love We Made” are all, in my opinion, better songs and more worthy singles.
I came across Dolly Parton in 1967 and Reba in 1975 (actually my Dad turned me on to Reba) while I still like both artists, the fact is both of them have recorded a lot of crap, this song being a prime example – this record is a D
I have only the vaguest of memories of this song from the 80s and it’s easy to see why it got memory-holed. There’s little memorable about the lyrics or arrangement, and Reba mails it in vocally. With all of that said, that generic country-pop sound reminds me of my childhood and gives me the feels. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the listen. I’d also be lying if I said I didn’t give it a second listen a day later just to revisit that long-lost vibe from a song that wasn’t immediately familiar. On its merits, this song is a definite C, but at a gut level I’m bumping it up a notch.
Grade: B-
I remember reading the “Who Would Win” series about which dangerous animals would win in a fight to my two boys when they were young, something like lion versus tiger.
Somehow pitting Reba McEntire’s version against Lee Greenwood’s take on another Dave Loggins hit seems to be in that same silly vein of compelling inconsequence.
Why? Because the song is bland, generic, and dull.
This song does plays better to my memory because of the company it kept at the time on the charts.
Poor T.G Sheppard and Lee Greenwood really took it on the chin in this feature!