Alison Limerick reveals why 'Where Love Lives' was never intended for release
The 90s club hit now features in the John Lewis Christmas ad
Following the moving John Lewis Christmas advert arriving on Tuesday 4th November, Alison Limerick joined Kate Thornton on Greatest Hits Radio to chat about her involvement with the festive campaign. The new advert features her hugely popular 90s hit 'Where Love Lives', along with a new version sung by singer/songwriter Labrinth.
The song was originally released back in 1990, but it was the re-release a year later that made it popular in clubs. Then, another re-release in 1996 gave it even more success, however it could have been very different, as Alison explained.
Chatting to Kate on Greatest Hits Radio, Alison revealed the story behind the dance classic, and how the song 'found her'.
"It (the song) found me in the form of Lati Kronlund, who wrote it, who I'd met two years before he wrote ‘Where Love Lives’," Alison explained. "And he had seen me performing originally in a show where I sang ‘God Bless the Child’, and just on that had decided he wanted to work with my voice.
"So two years later, he comes back and he says: ‘I've got another song. Do you want to sing it?’ I'm like, ‘yeah, sure’, you know. He's really easy, he's a lovely, tall, fabulous Swede."
She continued: "The demo was done on a little 4-track, which nobody knows anymore because they've all got Garage Band. Anyway, so little 4-track tape machine, we did this, did all the BVs (backing vocals), everything and then he went away because that's... it was just a session....Well, it wasn't even a session!"
Alison went on to explain how she then got a call from Arista Records wanting to sign her, which was a surprise as she'd just done the recording as 'he's a mate'.
"I was really confused," she continued: "Because Lati hadn't said he was going to try to do anything with it and then Chris Cook at Arista had decided that, because he loved the song, if he was going to do anything with it, he needed to sign the singer.
“And hello, 35 years later! Genius."
Alison's song has now been used in the 2025 Christmas advert for John Lewis and she opened up about what she hopes people will feel from watching it.
"I'm hoping that people who watch the ad will love it and feel the connections that are going on," the singer explained. "From the visuals, from the two versions of the song that are coming together, and I love Labrinth's version, it's just so beautiful and perfect for the time. I'm just hoping that people will like it."
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