Songful Style | “What’s Love Got to Do with It” by Tina Turner

It was Suzy Turner’s turn to choose the song for this month’s style challenge. And she chose to honor the recently late and eternally great, legendary rock star who shares her surname, Ms. Tina Turner!

About Songful Style

Songful Style is an ageless style challenge series hosted by Suzy of The Grey Brunette, Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge, and Marsha of Marsha in the Middle. 

Each month we will share a song with the lyrics and video and we invite you to use whatever aspect of the song that inspires you to create an outfit. 

It is similar to Style Imitating Art where we use artwork to inspire our outfit creations. Except Songful Style gives you lyrics, music, video, and album artwork to inspire your fashion creativity. You may even find inspiration in a memory triggered by the selected song. It is all open to your own personal interpretation and just a fun way to discover new music and get a little bit more creative with your wardrobe.

Anyone is welcome to join us on a permanent basis or you can just play along without any obligation to do anything other than feel inspired. We are flexible and fun and just want to find more ways to play dress up because it’s what we enjoy doing! 

We will be posting on the last Monday of each month and will announce our song choice for the following month at the end of each post.

Suzy chose Tina Turner’s iconic 1984 song “What’s Love Got to Do with It”. Let’s check out some details about this Grammy Hall of Fame tune.

Video Inspiration

The Lyrics

“What’s Love Got to Do with It” by Tina Turner

You must understand how the touch of your hand
Makes my pulse react
That it's only the thrill of boy meetin' girl
Opposites attract
It's physical
Only logical
You must try to ignore that it means more than that

Oh oh
What's love got to do, got to do with it?
What's love but a second hand emotion?
What's love got to do, got to do with it?
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

It may seem to you that I'm acting confused
When you're close to me
If I tend to look dazed I've read it someplace
I've got cause to be
There's a name for it
There's a phrase that fits
But whatever the reason you do it for me

Oh oh
What's love got to do, got to do with it?
What's love but a second hand emotion?
What's love got to do, got to do with it?
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

Huh
I've been takin' on a new direction
But I have to say
I've been thinkin' about my own protection
It scares me to feel this way

Ho oh
What's love got to do, got to do with it?
What's love but a second hand emotion?
What's love got to do, got to do with it?
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?
Got to do, got to do with it

What's love but a sweet old fashioned notion?
What's love got to do, got to do with it?
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?
Got to do
Huh, got to do with it

(What's love but a second hand emotion?)
What's love got to do, got to do with it?
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?

What's love?
(Ooh, ooh)
Got to do it
Got to do it
What's love?
(But a second hand emotion?)
Got to do
Huh, got to do with it
(What's love but a second hand emotion?)
What's love got to do, got to do with it?
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken...

About the Artist and the Song

Tina Turner, considered “The Queen of Rock an Roll” and one of the greatest singers of all time, was born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939, in Brownsville, Tennessee, the youngest of three daughters of Swiss parents Floyd Richard Bullock and his wife Zelma Priscilla (Currie) Bullock. Her father was an overseer for the sharecroppers on a farm in nearby Nutbush, Tennessee, where Tina recalled picking cotton with her family from a very young age. During her childhood, Anna Mae was separated from her sisters when their parents relocated to Knoxville, Tennessee, to work at a World War II defense facility. She was sent to stay with her strict paternal grandparents, Alex and Roxanna Bullock, who were deacon and deaconess of a Baptist church in Nutbush. Once the war ended, the sisters were reunited with their parents in Knoxville.

When Anna Mae was 11 years old, her mother left the family without warning and fled to St. Louis to escape her abusive husband. Two years later, Anna Mae’s father remarried and moved to Detroit, leaving the three girls with their maternal grandmother, Georgeanna Currie, in Brownsville. As a teen, Anna Mae was employed as a domestic worker for the Henderson family. She was in their home when she was notified that her half-sister and two of her cousins were killed in a car accident.

During her childhood, Anna Mae sang in the church choir and in high school, she was a cheerleader and a basketball player, and “socialized every chance she got.” When Anna Mae was 16, her grandmother Currie died and she moved to live with her mother in St. Louis where she graduated from Sumner High School in 1958. Right after high school, Anna Mae was employed as a hospital nurse’s aide.

During their teen years, Anna Mae and her sister began frequenting St. Louis nightclubs. She first saw Ike Turner perform in 1957 and she was so impressed with his talent that she asked if she could sing with his band despite knowing that few women had ever sung with him. He said he would call her but he lied so one night Anna Mae hijacked the microphone from the drummer during an intermission and sang a B.B. King blues ballad. Ike loved it so much that she became the featured vocalist with his band that night. During her early days with Ike, he taught her the finer points of voice control and performance.

In 1960, upon being urged to make Anna Mae the star of his show, Ike renamed her Tina because it rhymed with Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, his inspiration. He then added his last name to her stage persona and trademarked the name “Tina Turner” as a form of protection for him. If Anna Mae ever left him as previous singers had, he could simply replace her with another Tina Turner. (Hmm. I think that plan backfired for him.)

Anna Mae Bullock was publicly introduced for the first time as Tina Turner in 1960 with her single “A Fool in Love.” It reached number 2 on the R&B charts and number 27 on the Billboard Hot 100 and Ms. Turner was immediately set on a trajectory to success and musical superstardom.

Tina’s tumultuous relationship with Ike is heavily documented in news articles, stories, and books, so I will spare you the ugly details of that horror. She had two biological children. A son, Raymond Craig Hill, was born in 1958 to Tina and Kings of Rhythm saxophonist Raymond Hill. In 1960, she gave birth to her and Ike’s only child, Ronald Renelle Turner. Tina eventually adopted Ike’s two other children and raised them as her own. And Ike adopted Tina’s oldest son and changed his name to Craig Raymond Turner.

With a music career spanning more than 6 decades, there is so much written about this beloved woman that I simply cannot write a brief synopsis of her life. So I am not even going to try. You can go read more if you are interested. Just type “Tina Turner” into a Google search and you will find reading material for months!

Tina Turner died on May 24, 2023, in her home in Switzerland following years of poor health and illness. She was 83.

Now let’s learn about the song, What’s Love Got to Do with It. The song was written by Graham Lyle and Terry Britten and recorded by Tina Turner in 1984 for her fifth studio album, Private Dancer. Released as a single by Capitol Records in May 1984, this song became the biggest selling single of her career. The song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2012, her third song to receive this honor. What’s Love Got to Do with It was ranked number 309 on Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list but was bumped to 134 in their 2021 updated list. The song has been described “three minutes and 48 seconds of pop perfection” by Mark Millan of The Daily Vault. Go ahead and have yourself a listen and you will hear what that pop perfection sounds like!

Album Covers and Photo Inspiration

“Happiness is the greatest beauty secret.”

Tina Turner

And that’s all I have to share about this song. You are welcome to do your own research if you need more inspiration or if you are interested in learning more about the artist or the song. If you want to join us with your own outfit inspired by Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do with It”, we will be hosting a link party on our blogs on Monday, June 26, 2023, where you can share your post. We would love to see your Songful Styles!

Keeping it on the edge,

Shelbee

Joining these Fabulous Link Parties.