“I Love You Always Forever” by Betty Who (Donna Lewis cover), Thursday, October 6, 2022


In 1996, Welsh singer-songwriter Donna Lewis released her debut single "I Love You Always Forever." The understated, delicate pop song became an international hit. In the United State, it hit number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, unable to take the top spot because of multiple versions of that counted as Los Del Rio's version of  "Macarena," the dance track that plagued '96. Lewis never matched the success of her debut single.

SECRET MOMENTS SHUT IN THE HEAT OF THE AFTERNOON. Today’s version of “I Love You Always Forever” is performed by Australian pop star Betty Who, but I also recommend Mike Mains & the Branches version as well. Mike Mains & the Branches released their cover last year and is their most recent single. After an emotionally taxing record, When We Were in Love in 2019, "I Love You Always Forever" is a nice check in with the couple whose marriage was tested by events mentioned in the record. Betty Who's version was released as a single between her debut record, Take Me When You Go and her sophomore record, The Valley. The single was so successful, though, that Who decided to promote the song as the lead single from The Valley and include it as the fourteenth track of the record. Who's version topped Australia's airplay chart, reached the Top 4o in New Zealand and topped Billboard's US Dance Club Songs. Who told Spin about why she chose to record the song. She said, "It’s one of those songs that you don’t know, and when you hear it you go, ‘Ah I know this song.’" She went on to say in Vogue that she remembers the song being "everywhere" when she was 5 years old in '96.  

YOU'VE GOT THE MOST UNBELIEVABLE BLUE EYES I'VE EVER SEEN. Betty Who goes on to say in her Vogue interview listening to "I Love You Always Forever" she "got a lovely warm feeling about recollections of [her] childhood." There is something instantly recognizable about this song. I don't remember it from my sheltered radio days, though '96 was probably my earliest popular music memories. Donna Lewis wrote the track inspired by the 1956 novel Love for Lydia by H. E. Bates, taking the chorus of the song from the novel. The lush imagery in "I Love You Forever and Always" transports the listener to "cloud of heavenly scent," to a "windless summer night" to "the heat of the afternoon" or simply to look into "the most unbelievable eyes [you've] ever seen." The Lewis version is lush and delicate, Mike Mains' version adds masculinity to the track, but Who's version adds sensuality absent on the other two versions. The harmonized a cappella start with soft, yet sharp vocals piercing the song combined with the music video in which Who is part of a throuple adds a bit of naughty with the nostalgia. Not there's anything wrong with that.

Donna Lewis version:

Betty Who version:


Dance version from To All the Boys I Loved: 

Mike Mains & Branches version: 





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