Why Tina Turner Almost Didn't Record Her Hit Song "What's Love Got To Do With It"

    "I was rock and roll... This was a pop song."

    Joyann Jeffrey
    by Joyann Jeffrey

    BuzzFeed Staff

    “What’s Love Got to Do With It” is one of Tina Turner’s biggest songs. But when the singer first heard the demo, she said she didn’t like it because she thought it sounded “very pop.”

    "It was terrible. It was awful," Turner said in her HBO documentary TINA. "I was rock and roll... This was a pop song."

    However, Turner’s then-manager Roger Davis convinced her to meet with songwriter Terry Britten and give the song a try.

    "She came in and immediately she said, 'Well, you know I don't like that song. I don't want to do that song. Roger wants me to do it,'" Britten recalled. "I said, 'If it doesn't work out, we won't use it. So let's give it a go.'"

    Turner put her own spin on the track and used her “heavy voice” to sing the song her way.

    "I was stunned," Britten recalled.

    "They weren't used to [a] strong voice standing on top of music," Turner added. "But I converted it and made it my own."

    “What’s Love Got to Do with It” skyrocketed to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart the year it was released.

    Turner also won two Grammys for the song, which would soon become the title of her 1993 biopic starring Angela Bassett.

    “Hearing the song in the documentary TINA was one of the most touching moments for me in the movie,” Turner recalled on Instagram. “It reminded me how far I've come."

    Turner will always be a legend!