The Game of Love (Santana song)


"The Game of Love" is a song performed by Latin rock band Santana from their eighteenth studio album Shaman. The vocal performance on the song is by Michelle Branch. It was composed by Gregg Alexander and Rick Nowels. The song was released as a single in 2002, and won a Grammy Award for "Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals", as well as peaking at No. 5 in on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The song also reached number one in Poland and was a top-ten hit in Canada, Hungary, New Zealand, Romania and Spain.

Background

The song had originally been recorded with New Radicals frontman Gregg Alexander, but producer Clive Davis felt a female voice would maximize the song's appeal and a recording of Santana performing "The Game of Love" with Tina Turner as vocalist was completed. When Turner declined to participate in making a video for the track, Davis recruited Macy Gray to record a replacement vocal. When Davis was not satisfied with that version, Michelle Branch was asked to record the song, with Branch's rhythm guitar playing also added to the track. Branch said, "It was the first time for me to sing somebody else's song. Usually I'm like: 'Oh I want it this way' and I'm in charge...I didn't meet , I didn't know what was going on...It felt to me like wow it seems like there's so much at stake, I'm going to go in there and just sing my heart out and just cross my fingers."
The Tina Turner version of "The Game of Love" was issued on the 2007 retrospective Ultimate Santana. Santana said "There's only one Tina Turner...No one can hit a note like Tina Turner...I love Michelle and she did a great interpretation of it. It's just that with all honor and respect to Michelle, there's the girl and there's the woman, and Michelle is unfolding into a woman...but it takes time to go from a girl into a woman."

Music video

The music video depicts Santana and Branch in an alley with couples around them, each expressing their love for one another. The director was Paul Fedor and the video was filmed in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, with cameo appearances by Wesley Snipes, Helen Hunt and Jennifer Garner.

Track listing

  1. "The Game of Love" – Santana, Michelle Branch
  2. "Come to My World" – Santana
  3. "Curacion" – Santana
  4. "The Game of Love" – Santana, Michelle Branch

    Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts