Day After Day #263: I Don't Know Why I Love You

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).

I Don't Know Why I Love You (1990)

Sometimes success is the worst thing that can happen to a band. Take the English alt-rock act The House of Love. They formed in London in 1986, had a few hit singles in the U.K., released their debut and signed to a major label. But by the time they released their second album, the band was already beset with infighting, substance abuse and general disarray. Within a few years, they would split up.

Singer-guitarist Guy Chadwick started the band after seeing the Jesus and Mary Chain in concert. He wanted a band that sounded like the Velvet Underground and soon had recruited drummer Pete Evans, guitarist Terry Bickers, German singer-guitarist Andrea Heukamp and bassist Chris Groothuizen. The band signed to Creation Records, released a debut single and began touring with Felt and Zodiac Mindwarp. Heukamp quit the band at the end of 1987 because she didn't enjoy touring, but she appeared on the cover of a Germany-only compilation of the band's early recordings informally called The German Album.

The band's debut found them having many disagreements with producer Pat Collier, but the lead single "Christine" went to #1 on the U.K. indie chart when it was released in May 1988. The group's drug use and internal problems had begun to increase during this time. After the indie success of the first album in Europe, the group signed with Fontana Records (and Polygram in the U.S.) and began recording a follow-up. The sessions were full of problems, with the band going through four different producers and multiple studios over the course of two years. Bickers was unhappy with the new record deal and was dealing with manic depression, while Chadwick's drug and alcohol use was on the rise. The two eventually stopped talking to each other.

The album, also called The House of Love (they didn't like naming albums, apparently), came out in February 1990. The first single, "Never," was released against the band's wishes but stalled at #41 on the U.K. Singles Chart.

The second single, "I Don't Know Why I Love You," met a similar fate when it was first released in November 1989, despite BBC's Radio 1 naming it Single of the Week. The song was released in the U.S. in 1990 and caught on with alternative radio (I remember hearing it on WFNX and WBCN in the Boston area), hitting #2 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart and got Buzz Bin play on MTV.

The chiming guitars of Bickers and Chadwick ring out as the latter's deadpan vocals remind one of the Church or Echo and the Bunnymen.

"I don't know why I love you, your face is a hammer in my head/I remember every word you said, I just don't know why I love you/I don't know why I care, I never even liked your hair/I feel like a seventh heir, but I don't know why I love you/Television turns me on/When the summer's hot and the spirit's long/How can I get close to you/When you got no mercy, no you got no mercy/No you got no."

Bickers' lead guitar work is really outstanding, providing little flourishes here and there but never overwhelming the song.

"I don't know why I love you, your face is a foreign food/I really don't know if I should, I just don't know why I love you/I don't know why I care, I duck and I weave and I fight/I work just to treat you right, God, I don't know why I love you."

By the time U.S. listeners were hearing the song, Bickers was already out of the band after getting fired in the midst of a 60-date U.K. tour in late '89. He was replaced by Simon Walker of My White Bedroom. The House of Love released a compilation album called A Spy in the House of Love in late 1990. But by the time the band released its next album, Babe Rainbow, in 1992, grunge was all-consuming in the U.S. and the Stone Roses were dominating in the U.K. The album failed to chart, despite getting good reviews. The band toured with Ocean Colour Scene and Catherine Wheel, but couldn't get any traction. By the end of '92, two lead guitarists had come and gone.

House of Love's next album was 1993's Audience with the Mind, but it also flopped commercially. Meanwhile, drummer Evans retired, leaving only Chadwick and Groothuizen. The group split later that year.

Chadwick and Bickers reconciled years later and reformed the House of Love in 2003, also bringing back Evans. In 2005, the band released Days Run Away and toured throughout Europe. Another album with that lineup (including bassist Matt Jury) was released in 2013, touring occasionally in the years that followed; they did a short tour in 2018 for the 30th anniversary of their debut album. 

Chadwick announced a completely new band lineup in 2020 with the intention of touring the U.S., although that was delayed a few years because of COVID. A new album was released in 2022. Also that year, original member Andrea Heukamp died at 57. 

Although they never lived up to their expectations, the House of Love left behind some memorable music and have been acknowledged as an influence by shoegaze acts like Ride and Slowdive. And songs like "I Don't Know Why I Love You" certainly capture that moment in time quite well.