About The Song
“Love Has No Pride” was released by Linda Ronstadt as the lead single in October 1973 via Asylum Records. It serves as the opening track on her album Don’t Cry Now, issued on October 1, 1973. Produced by Peter Asher, the song runs 3:15 and features a stripped-down country-rock arrangement with acoustic guitar, pedal steel, and Ronstadt’s vulnerable, pleading vocal that builds emotional intensity without overstatement.
Written by Eric Kaz and Libby Titus, the track first appeared on Bonnie Raitt’s 1972 album Give It Up. Kaz and Titus crafted it as a raw confession of surrender to heartbreak, and Ronstadt’s version became the most widely heard interpretation.
The lyrics deliver a direct, aching plea for reconciliation: “I’ve been in love so many times / I think I know the score / But I keep falling in love too easy / With the wrong kind of man.” The chorus strips away all defenses: “Love has no pride when I call out your name / And it’s so hard to say goodbye / When there’s no one to blame.” The narrator admits complete emotional defeat, begging the departed lover to return despite the pain and loss of dignity. The tone mixes resignation with desperate hope, turning personal humiliation into a universal anthem of lingering attachment.
The single reached No. 51 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 23 on the Adult Contemporary chart. While modest in pop terms, it marked an early breakthrough for Ronstadt on Asylum and helped establish her as a serious interpreter of contemporary material. The B-side was “Colorado.” Ronstadt performed the song frequently in concert, including a memorable appearance on The Midnight Special in December 1973 that captured its raw emotional power.
The track has appeared on compilations such as The Essential Linda Ronstadt and various early-career anthologies. Critics have praised how Ronstadt’s phrasing and the sparse production elevated Kaz and Titus’s song into something more intimate and believable than the original.
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Lyric
I’ve had bad dreams too many times
To think that they don’t mean much anymore
The fun times have gone and left my sad home
And the friends who once cared just walked out that door
But love has no pride when I call out your name
And love has no pride when there’s no one to blame
But I’d give anything to see you again
I’ve been alone too many nights
To think that you would come back again
And I’ve heard you talk, “She’s crazy to stay”
But this love hurts me so, I don’t care what you say
But love has no pride when I call out your name
And love has no pride when there’s no one to blame
But I’d give anything to see you again
If I could buy your love, well, I’d surely try, my friend
And if I could pray my prayers would never end
But if you want me to beg, I’ll fall down on my knees
And ask you to come back
I’d be pleading for you to come back
I’d beg for you to come back to me
And love has no pride when I call out your name
And love has no pride when there’s no one but myself to blame
But I’d give anything to see you again