"Everlasting Love" is a song written by Buzz Cason and Mac Gayden, originally a 1967 hit for Robert Knight and since remade several times, most successfully by Love Affair, Carl Carlton and Sandra. The original version of "Everlasting Love" was recorded in Nashville by Robert Knight, whose producers Buzz Cason and Mac Gayden aimed to record him in a Motown style with especial reference to the Four Tops and the Temptations. Cason would recall how he and Gayden wrote "Everlasting Love" to serve as B-side for a song entitled "The Weeper", which they were to record with Knight. The night before the recording session for "The Weeper", Gayden stopped by Cason's home and, according to Cason, "as usual brought several melodies, riffs and grooves to work on", two of whose hit potential particularly struck Cason, who had Gayden combine these ideas into one melody. The writing session was abbreviated as Gayden had to go home for supper; Cason assured his partner: "I'll put some kind of lyric to it...Neither of us was too concerned as just knew that 'The Weeper' would be the hit of the session." Cason believes he may have drawn the phrase "everlasting love" from the biblical verse Jeremiah 31.3 which begins: "Yea, I have loved you with an everlasting love".
Ultimately "Everlasting Love" was released as an A-side for Knight and reached #13 in 1967. Subsequently the song has reached the U.S. Top 40 three times, most successfully by Carl Carlton, who peaked at #6 in 1974, with more moderate success for remakes by Rex Smith and Rachel Sweet (#32/ 1981) and Gloria Estefan (#27/ 1995). Thus, "Everlasting Love" is one of two songs (the other being "The Way You Do the Things You Do") to become a Top 40 hit in the 1960s, '70s, '80s and '90s.
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