Overview

Image from the music video.

“My Love Is For Real,” the first single from Paula Abdul’s third studio album “Head Over Heels.” The song was written by Paula Abdul and Rhett Lawrence and released on May 29, 1995.

The song contains a hyptnotic middle-eastern sounding groove, with background vocals provided by popular Israeli singer Ofra Haza.  In a promotional interview for Head Over Heels, Abdul stated that Haza flew to Los Angeles to record her vocals and stayed there for a week.

"My Love Is For Real" was Abdul's first commercial single release in four years, following "Will You Marry Me?" from the Spellbound album in 1992.

The single did not live up to expectations of being a big comeback hit for Abdul. It was Abdul's first single to not reach the Top 20 and was considered the last major hit song in her career with Virgin Records.

It peaked at #28 on the Billboard Hot 100 and did end up becoming a success in clubs with several remixes commissioned, even hitting #1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart.

Internationally the single fared rather well hitting #3 in Canada, #7 in Australia the top 20 in New Zealand and #28 in the U.K. In other European and Asian countries the single achieved moderate success (mostly charting in the lower parts of the top 50.)

"My Love Is for Real" also charted at number 16 on the U.S. Pop Songs in June 1995.

Image from the music video.

A new unreleased song titled "Didn't I Say I Love You", was included the B-side of the single release. It was written by Elliot Wolff and Stacey Piersa and does not appear on the Head over Heels album although it was considered by Virgin for inclusion on the final album release.

Two versions of “Didn’t I Say I Love You” were produced, one for the U.S. and a slower temp version for the U.K. release of “My Love Is For Real.”

Additionally, "My Love Is For Real" was covered by Strike, a British dance band and included on their album “I Saw The Future” in 1997.  Strike was also responsible for some of the MLIFR single remixes including the “Strike's Pink Wig Dub” and “Strike's Straight Up There Mix” of “My Love Is For Real.”

"Top of the Pops" performance in the UK.

A popular music video filmed in Morocco was directed by Michael Haussman, produced by Lizzie Ross and edited by Mary Ann McClure of The Artists Company, Ltd. It had a Middle Eastern theme to match the tone of the song.

The video was nominated for several MTV Video Music Awards, and like all of her previous music videos, received heavy rotation on MTV. It was shown across the United States before the film Clueless as a promotional gimmick.

The music video was never released commercially on VHS or DVD but it is available for download on iTunes.