"Where Do Broken Hearts Go" is a song by American singer and actress Whitney Houston from her second studio album, Whitney (1987). Written by Frank Wildhorn and Chuck Jackson and produced by Narada Michael Walden, Arista Records released it as the album's fourth single from the album on February 15, 1988. Houston initially refused to record the song due to what she perceived to be a lack of a message but eventually changed her mind once Arista president Clive Davis convinced her it would be a success for her.
A pop and soul ballad, the song is performed by a woman who reflects on a past relationship following a painful breakup and is convinced of reuniting with her former lover in the distant future. Some commentators cited the song as marking a shift towards more introspective and emotional themes in Houston's music. Prior to recording the ballad, singer Smokey Robinson offered to record it but was rebuffed by the song's composers. It was one of the first songs presented to Arista and one of the last to be recorded for the Whitney album.
Music critics were mostly positive towards the song upon its release. A major commercial success, it topped the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks and became Houston's seventh record-setting consecutive number-one single on the chart, breaking a chart record set previously by the Beatles and the Bee Gees. , the record still holds. It also reached the top-ten in five international territories including Canada and Ireland and peaked inside the top twenty in the United Kingdom. The music video was directed by Peter Israelson in Newark, New Jersey. Despite claims of "selling out" due to the sound of the song and of the racially ambiguous appearance of her love interest in the video, it received heavy rotation on MTV and BET and won Houston a Soul Train Music Award nomination for R&B/Urban Contemporary Single – Female. Houston performed the song in full on the 1988 concert legs of her Moment of Truth World Tour while including the song in medley sets throughout the 1990s, often in the "Love Medley" section created by Houston and musical director Rickey Minor.
The song has since become one of Houston's signature ballads and along with her other hits on the Whitney album, helped to set a benchmark for female artists. The ballad has been covered by many artists over the years from diverse genres including Wayne Wonder, Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, Sandy Lam and Pia Toscano. Following Houston's death in 2012, it has been included in lists of best-of songs, most notably Essence, where the song topped the list of greatest break-up songs ever.
Background In February 1985, Whitney Houston released her acclaimed self-titled debut album. After a slow start, the album's sales picked up after the success of her single "You Give Good Love", which first topped the Hot Black Singles chart in May 1985 before surprisingly crossing over successfully to pop and adult contemporary radio, later peaking at numbers three and four respectively on the Billboard Hot 100 and adult contemporary chart two months later that July.
It was then followed by three successive singles - "Saving All My Love for You", "How Will I Know" and "Greatest Love of All" - all of which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in a row, the first for a female solo artist and also set a record for the most number one pop singles off a single album by a female artist, while the album itself would become the best selling album of all time by a black female artist at the time.
Davis initially had plans to work on Houston's sophomore album, Whitney, in early 1986 and initially planned for the album to be released in September of the year but due to the debut album's continued success on the pop charts, buoyed by the success of "Greatest Love of All", Davis pushed the date to February 1987 and then to June 1987 following the airplay success of the ballad "All at Once", which Houston had performed on television and in festivals such as the Sanremo Music Festival in February 1987.
Writing and recording
In 1984, while driving in his car, musical composer Frank Wildhorn, who later conceived the Broadway musical, Jekyll & Hyde, first heard Houston on the radio on her hit duet, "Hold Me", with Teddy Pendergrass. Upon hearing Houston's voice, Wildhorn remembered saying "that's a voice I would like to write for."
Born and raised in New York City, Wildhorn signed with Chrysalis Publishing around this time period and had about 80 songs recorded in a five-year period. Among the songs Wildhorn first wrote was a song called "One More Night" for singer Donna Washington, which was produced by Charles "Chuck" Jackson, who wrote the hits, "This Will Be" and "I've Got Love on My Mind" for Natalie Cole in the mid-1970s. Following this collaboration, Wildhorn and Jackson agreed to work together.
Not too long afterwards, Wildhorn received a phone call from Jackson who gave him the title of a new song they were to work on together called "Where Do Broken Hearts Go". Bronson later told Billboard editor Joel Whitburn, "I sat there at the piano, and in about 40 minutes, 90 percent of the sketch of the song was done." Continued Wildhorn: "I called [Jackson] back and said 'You gotta come over here tonight because I think we've got something." The song was completed that same night and a demo tape with "just a piano, drum machine, and one vocal" was recorded.
Cherie Fonorow, who worked at Chrysalis, submitted the ballad to Clive Davis at Arista. Said Wildhorn: "Clive really liked the song, but he needed a bridge." Wildhorn obliged and soon a bridge was added. The song was among the first to be submitted in songs that Davis and executives at Arista sought to include on Houston's sophomore album, Whitney, around September 1986. Wildhorn admitted later that he and Jackson were worried that the song would be passed over after not getting word for months after submitting the song:"From what I understand, it was one of the first songs chosen for the album. Knowing [it was for] Whitney's project, there must have been 50,000 songs submitted after (ours). So every week it was, 'Do we still have it?' We were going through hell."
According to published reports, when Houston heard the demo of the song, she flatly turned down recording it, feeling the song "lacked a message", was "trite" and "had no depth", something the singer confirmed in later interviews. In 2000, Houston admitted, "I didn't even wanna do '[Where Do] Broken Hearts [Go]', I hated the song, I didn't wanna sing it." In a 2010 interview, Houston claimed she was in Davis' office having "such a big fuss" about recording it. In both interviews, Houston stated that Davis continually stressed to her that the song was a number one song for her.
Because of Houston's reluctance, other singers offered to record it, including Motown artist Smokey Robinson, who was at the time recording content for his comeback album, One Heartbeat. Despite Robinson's insistence on recording the song, he was rebuffed by the songwriters and Davis, who still were pinning their hopes on Houston changing her mind in recording the song.
It was only after producer Narada Michael Walden retooled the song's sound that Houston agreed to record it around February 1987, following her performance at the 29th Annual Grammy Awards. In 2012, Wildhorn told Playbill that after initially sending the song to Davis and Houston, he received a letter from the pair saying they loved the song but that they wanted a second bridge, to which Wildhorn composed on the spot. It was eventually accepted.
The recording took place at Manhattan's Right Track Studios. Houston admitted that she eventually found "some meaning in [the song] that [she] could relate to". Walden admitted that the song was the hardest to record because, "[Houston] wasn't used to having her heart broken. We had to lower all the lights, put the candles on, take a moment, just kind of imagine how [she'd] feel broken down with tears, and have nowhere to go. That was the hardest gear to shift into. But once she got there, if you hear 'Where Do Broken Hearts Go,' it'll break your heart." Along with the uptempo single, "So Emotional", recorded a month later, it became one of the last songs to be recorded for the album.
Following the release of Whitney, three singles — "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)", "Didn't We Almost Have It All" and "So Emotional" — preceded the ballad, all going to number one on the Billboard Hot 100. As planned, Davis set the release for "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" to be the album's fourth official single in February 1988, exactly a year after its recording.
Wildhorn recalled to Songfacts on being struck by her performance of the song after Davis played it for him:
“I cried the first time I heard Whitney sing ‘Where Do Broken Hearts Go.’ I've had Julie Andrews, Liza Minnelli, Johnny Mathis, Trisha Yearwood and Patti LaBelle (sing songs I've written), but if someone put a gun to my head, the answer is Whitney's version of ‘Where Do Broken Hearts Go,’ going No. 1, that's as good as it gets.”
By 2010, more than twenty years later, Houston cited the ballad as being "now one of [her] most favorite songs".
“Where Do Broken Hearts Go” is a pop and soul song with R&B elements. According to the sheet music published by Sony Music Publishing, the song is written in the key of D major and follows a chord progression of D-C-B-F-G-A-Bm7Em7 with a key change of D♯ near the end of the song.
The beat is set in common time, and moves at a moderate tempo of 66 beats per minute. Houston's vocals in the song span from the note of A3 to the note of D5, while the piano elements range from the low note of B1 to the high note of C6.
Critical reception Initial critical reception was mostly positive. AllMusic's Ron Wynn highlighted the track in his review of the Whitney album. Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times described it as a ballad "that raises questions without making you care about the answers."
People Magazine said that songs like "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" "have some substance". Pop Rescue noted it as a "classic big 80s power ballad", adding it as "the perfect ending to a school disco."
Chart performance
"Where Do Broken Hearts Go" entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 47 on February 27, 1988, as the "Hot Shot Debut" of that week, two weeks after its release. After entering the top 40 on March 5, it hit the top ten on April 2 in just its sixth week. Three weeks later, it peaked at number one on April 23, 1988 in its ninth week replacing Billy Ocean's "Get Outta My Dreams, Get into My Car", setting an all-time chart record in which Houston became the first and only artist in pop music history with seven consecutive number one singles, a record Houston still holds. Houston's record was also significant in that it broke the record first set by The Beatles and later shared with the Bee Gees, each of which scored six consecutive number one hits in a row. It also topped the Hot 100 Singles Sales and Hot 100 Airplay charts. After a two-week run, it was replaced by Terence Trent D'Arby's "Wishing Well". The song would spend 13 weeks inside the top 40, six weeks inside the top ten and a cumulative total of 18 weeks on the chart altogether.
Following the song's chart peak, Houston wrote a congratulatory letter to Wildhorn that said, "Where do broken hearts go? I have no idea, I'm still trying to figure that out". When Davis called Houston to inform her that she had set a chart record with the ballad in "surpass[ing] Elvis and The Beatles and I was the only woman to do that," Houston replied in 2000, "ah, that's history." The song was also the first and only number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 for both Wildhorn and Jackson.