Peter Cetera wrote “Glory of Love” with a boxing movie in mind, not a karate one.
Sylvester Stallone‘s team turned it down for Rocky IV, and it wasn’t until the song landed in The Karate Kid Part II that it became the No. 1 hit everyone remembers.
Cetera wrote the song as a solo artist, but he hadn’t always been one. Chicago was built to be a band without a frontman, with vocal and writing duties shared among the members. But by the late ’70s, it was Cetera’s ballads that were becoming its biggest hits.
That trend picked up in the ’80s when producer David Foster started working closely with the group. As MTV put Chicago’s videos into heavy rotation, Cetera increasingly became the face of the band.
Not everyone in the band was thrilled about it. Even with Cetera’s voice carrying 1984’s Chicago 17 to big success, tension grew over his interest in going solo and cutting back on touring, and the band eventually parted ways with him.
By 1985, Cetera was working on his second solo album, and he and Foster still had the chord progression from that unused Rocky IV pitch sitting around. When producers on The Karate Kid Part II came calling about a theme song, that leftover progression became the starting point.
To get a feel for the film, Cetera watched some footage and focused on its themes of honor and courage. He wrote the lyrics with his then-wife, Diane Nini, and the track was produced by Michael Omartian.
The release schedule ended up working in Cetera’s favor. “Glory of Love” reached No. 1 not long after the movie hit theaters. A few weeks later, Solitude/Solitaire arrived and rode that momentum to platinum status.
The song earned Oscar and Golden Globe nominations for Best Original Song, losing the Oscar and Golden Globe to Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away.”
Cetera also received a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male.