The Story and Meaning Behind “Up Where We Belong,” the Hit Duet by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes That Made Movie Magic

The sweeping movie love theme was very much a staple of the 1980s. These songs provided a kind of emotional shorthand, summing up the relationship between the two leads. Even better if the song was a duet between a man and a woman to mimic the give and take between the two characters.

If you’re looking for a prototype for this type of song, “Up Where We Belong,” performed by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes for the 1982 film An Officer and a Gentleman, fills that role quite well. Here’s how this song came together, in terms of its creation and realization.

The Song

“Up Where We Belong” was a product of several talented people coming together. The filmmakers of An Officer and a Gentleman decided a ballad to accompany the final scene in the movie, the one where Richard Gere carries Debra Winger off to a happy ending, would be appropriate.

Initially, the intent was for Jack Nitzsche, who created the score for the film, to write the standalone song as well. But when he couldn’t quite carve the time to write the song, he turned to folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie, who provided an in-progress song with the title “Up Where We Belong.”

Last but not least came the lyrics, which were farmed out to top songwriter-for-hire Will Jennings. After seeing an early version of the film and hearing bits of Nitzche’s soundtrack, the lyrics quickly came into focus. Now that the producers had a song, all they needed was a singer. Or, as it would turn out, a pair of singers.

The Performers

Neither Joe Cocker nor Jennifer Warnes were what you would call hot commercial commodities in 1982. Producers initially balked at Warnes, thinking her reputation for soft rock wasn’t exactly what was required. But they warmed to the idea of combining her with an artist who could add some grit to contrast her sweet singing style.

Joe Cocker was a sensation when he arrived on the scene as one of rock’s finest interpreters in the late ’60s and early ’70s. But his career had also fallen on hard times. Luckily, he was coming off a collaborative album with a jazz group called The Crusaders, which led to a performance at the Grammys in 1982.

That performance helped him get a shot to duet with Warnes on “Up Where We Belong.” The unlikely pairing sang the stuffing out the track, and the song became a worldwide chart-topper. Cocker and Warnes came together often over the years to perform this one-off duet live, last doing so just a year prior to Cocker’s death in 2014.

The Meaning Behind “Up Where We Belong”

“Up Where We Belong” is a song about seizing the moment when you’ve found a relationship that’s right. The song suggests some intangible elements can contribute to a coupling to make it ideal, which is why the voices sing out in the chorus, beseeching the emotion as if it could answer prayers: Love lift us up where we belong.

Will Jennings’ verses state the case for focusing on the here and now. Who knows what tomorrow brings, the pair sing. In a world where few hearts survive. If the future is problematic, the past is even more of a dead end: Some hang on to used to be / Live their life looking behind.

The song waxes rational and realistic about reaching the heights: The road is long / There are mountains in our way / But we climb a step every day. That incremental approach might work for the lovers in the song, but “Up Where We Belong” itself rocketed to the top upon its release, thanks to a three-way songwriting connection and two performers perfectly attuned to the sentiment expressed.

Photo by Ron Wolfson/WireImage