01/05/2025

Three glittering disco balls reflecting sparkling golden light

https://www.nfsa.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-04/Love%20is%20in%20the%20Air_disco%20ball.jpg

The enduring joy of ‘Love is in the Air’

Claire Isaac

It’s almost our unofficial national anthem... a disco alternative to ‘Advance Australia Fair’, played in clubs, onscreen and at parties since its first incarnation in 1978. But if you’ve somehow forgotten (or never knew) who sang ‘Love is in the Air’, let us help you out.

Please take to the floor, John Paul Young.

While there were 14 years between John Paul Young’s first rendition and its rousing revamp with a choral chorus for Baz Luhrmann’s OTT dance spectacular Strictly Ballroom in 1992, the song has now been delighting us on dancefloors in some form for nearly 50 years. Not bad for a track that was created simply to break into the German electronic charts...

Official video clip of the 1992 Ballroom Mix version of 'Love is in the Air' performed by John Paul Young for the movie Strictly Ballroom. 'Love is in the Air' by Vanda/Young, Performed by John Paul Young © Boomerang Investments Pty Ltd admin by BMG AM Pty Ltd, Licensed courtesy of BMG AM Pty Ltd.

Who wrote ‘Love is in the Air’?

It was a pair of songwriters who gave JPY the song of his career. Harry Vanda and George Young were members of the band the Easybeats, and world-famous for their own hits including ‘Friday on My Mind’. But they were also songwriters for hire who had written a few tracks for JPY (as he was also known), including his hits ‘I Hate the Music’ and ‘Standing in the Rain’.

In 1978, JPY released a new Vanda and Young penned number, a little song called ‘Love is in the Air’. The track was arranged specifically for JPY after ‘Standing in the Rain’ had been successful in Germany – as a means to break into the booming electronic music market there – but it achieved far more than that. It peaked at No. 3 in Australia, No. 7 in the US Billboard Charts and No. 5 in the UK, and the album that followed won him the King of Pop crown and won Vanda and Young the titles of Best Australian record producer and Best Australian Songwriter at the same King of Pop awards. It also, of course, won our hearts.

A ‘Love’ renaissance

In 1992 ‘Love is in the Air’ became the triumphantly tacky theme song for Strictly Ballroom. The rest is pink-tulle-and-diamante-encrusted history – the song suddenly took on a second life, giving JPY – who by this stage had left the music industry to concentrate on a career in radio – a new legion of fans and a new lease on pop star life. It became the most played Australian song overseas, according to APRA, featured in the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000 and becoming the unofficial team song for one Scottish football team, Dundee United.

JPY was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2009, wrote his autobiography in 2019 and continued to release music for several years. Vanda and Young produced albums for Young’s brothers, Malcolm and Angus of AC/DC fame among others, and recorded their own songs under the name Flash and the Pan for some time. George Young died in 2017.

And as for ‘Love is in the Air’, well, that 122 bpm masterpiece continues to send us out on to the dancefloor today.