Paloma Faith — Only Love Can Hurt Like This

"Only Love Can Hurt Like This" is a song by English singer Paloma Faith, written by Diane Warren. Released as the second single to promote her third studio album "A Perfect Contradiction" on 11 May 2014.

The song peaked at number 6 in the United Kingdom, making it Faith's highest-charting single to date, surpassing her 2012 single "Picking Up the Pieces". It made its Australian chart premiere on 21 July 2014 after being used on a high-profile TV advertisement for Channel 7's drama series Winners & Losers. It reached the number one position on the Australian ARIA charts on 26 July. It also peaked at number 3 on the New Zealand Singles Chart, marking Faith's first top ten and highest-peaking single there to date.

In 2022, due to Tik Tok, the song became more popular worldwide and peaked at number 75 on the 200 Billboard Global chart. It also entered other charts in Europe. Faith subsequently released a slowed-down version of the song, which also went viral on the platform.

"Only Love Can Hurt Like This" was written by Diane Warren, who has previously written songs for Whitney Houston, Cher, Toni Braxton, LeAnn Rimes, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears. Initially, Faith refused to record the song because she hadn't any writing credit for it, however after hearing the song Faith felt overwhelmed by how (lyrically) the song reflected on her relationship and emotion at the time. Warren has also written a song with a synonymous title, "Nothing Hurts Like Love", sung by Daniel Bedingfield. The song "Only Love Can Hurt Like This" was premiered in a stripped back acoustic version on Amazon.com, and was later performed at a Burberry fashion show in February 2014; later this performance was made available on the iTunes Store.

The song has been described as a Motown-influenced sixties-style ballad and is a largely acoustic song featuring mainly brass and drums, expanding to include backing vocals and heavy use of violins in the final choruses. The song also includes subtle piano accentuation. The iTunes album review for A Perfect Contradiction describes the song as: " towering, wall-of-sound ballad ..." - a reference to the production formula developed by record producer Phil Spector.

The official music video for "Only Love Can Hurt Like This" was preceded by an '"Off the Cuff"' version, released on Faith's official Vevo account and was premiered on 31 March 2014. In this video, is shown just Paloma (looking typically vampish in a trademark vintage outfit) and her pianist (Dom Pipkin, who had previously recorded piano for Faith on the acoustic tracks included in the deluxe edition of "Fall to Grace") performing the song alone in a room. This video was directed by Anthony Saul.

On 25 April, Faith uploaded a teaser of the official music video on her official Instagram account, and informed that the video was set to release on 28 April. The song's official video has been credited to Denna Cartamkhoub (as the producer) and Paul Gore (as the director) who also worked with Faith on her "Can't Rely on You"'s and Trouble with My Baby's music video. The video for this song was shot by Daniel Landin.

The clip Paloma Faith — Only Love Can Hurt Like This can be downloaded for free and without registration.