I Will Always Love You (1992)

"I Will Always Love You" is a song recorded by American singer Whitney Houston. It is a cover of the original song written and recorded by Dolly Parton, and was inspired by a version recorded by Linda Ronstadt. It was released on November 2, 1992, by Arista Records as the lead single from the soundtrack to The Bodyguard, Houston's film acting debut. Her version was produced by Canadian musician David Foster. The song was a global success, topping the singles charts in 34 countries. Considered one of the most famous and iconic songs of all time, it has sold 24 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling single by a female artist of all time as well as one of the best-selling singles of all time. It was also the world's best-selling single of 1992. The music video for "I Will Always Love You" is the first 20th century video by a solo act to reach 1 billion views on YouTube. As of October 2026, it has reached over 1.9 billion views, making it one of the most watched videos of all time. In September 2026, the song reached a billion streams on Spotify.

Houston won Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 36th Annual Grammy Awards for the song. A live performance was included on the 1999 release Divas Live '99, and a 1994 performance of the song at Houston's acclaimed and history-making concert at Johannesburg, South Africa, where she became the first international artist to tour the region following the abolishing of apartheid and the presidency of Nelson Mandela, was included on the 2014 CD/DVD release of Whitney Houston Live: Her Greatest Performances.

Houston's version of the song appeared at number eight on NME's Greatest No 1 Singles in History list. It was included in the list of Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2004, Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You" placed at number 65 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema. It was also ranked at number 22 on The Guardian's list of Britain's favorite 100 songs, published in May 2002. In February 2014, the song placed at number six on Billboard's list of the Top 50 Love Songs of All Time. A year later, in 2015, Rod Couch ranked the song as the number one song of the rock era in his book, The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era: 1955-2015. In addition, the song has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and was culturally preserved by the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry.

The single is cited as one of Houston's signature songs.

Background

In April 1991, Houston announced that she was to co-star with Kevin Costner in a film titled The Bodyguard. The decision to do the film by Houston initially "didn't impress" Clive Davis, the head of Houston's record label Arista, describing the film's first draft of the script as a "pure thriller", later admitting that he was "nervous" of the film's aspects and what it would do for Houston's film career. Due to Houston's worldwide fame as a music superstar, Davis felt the idea of Houston doing the film "without really previously ever testing her acting chops... was speculative. It was risky. You don't come fully confident that she can do everything. And will the script be up to the mettle of somebody who would become the best-selling vocalist of all time?" Davis wrote a letter to the film's producers, which included Costner, where he told them of his concern of having Houston in the film without any music. The producers agreed with Davis and Houston, in a deal with the film's distributor, Warner Bros. Pictures, signed a deal for control of the soundtrack album and back royalties from each sale the album would make. Houston eventually agreed to record six songs, five of which would be prominently featured in scenes on the film. According to Canadian-American producer David Foster, he met Costner at the premiere of his 1990 film, Dances with Wolves and claimed Costner told him that he would be the right man to produce the soundtrack for the film.

Work on the soundtrack of the film began in Los Angeles that November, the same month where principal photography on the film took place. Between November 1991 and February 1992, in between filming the movie, Houston recorded four songs. The songs included the rock song "Queen of the Night", a song Houston herself co-wrote, a pop-soul rendition of the gospel hymn "Jesus Loves Me" and the pop ballads "Run to You" and "I Have Nothing", the latter two becoming Houston's first collaborations with Foster. For the fifth song, Houston, Costner and the film's music supervisor Maureen Crowe searched for the song they feel could be the "key moment in the plot" of the film. That March, it was suggested by Costner that they cover the Jimmy Ruffin soul ballad, "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted". Houston and Crowe, however, felt the Motown song was not appropriate to be performed at the end of the film.