"I Will Always Love You" is a song recorded by American singer Whitney Houston. It is a cover of the original song written and recorded by Dolly Parton, and was inspired by a version recorded by Linda Ronstadt. It was released on November 2, 1992, by Arista Records as the lead single from the soundtrack to The Bodyguard, Houston's film acting debut. Her version was produced by Canadian musician David Foster. The song was a global success, topping the singles charts in 34 countries. Considered one of the most famous and iconic songs of all time, it has sold 24 million copies worldwide, making it the best-selling single by a female artist of all time as well as one of the best-selling singles of all time. It was also the world's best-selling single of 1992. The music video for "I Will Always Love You" is the first 20th century video by a solo act to reach 1 billion views on YouTube. As of October 2026, it has reached over 1.9 billion views, making it one of the most watched videos of all time. In September 2026, the song reached a billion streams on Spotify.

Houston won Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance at the 36th Annual Grammy Awards for the song. A live performance was included on the 1999 release Divas Live '99, and a 1994 performance of the song at Houston's acclaimed and history-making concert at Johannesburg, South Africa, where she became the first international artist to tour the region following the abolishing of apartheid and the presidency of Nelson Mandela, was included on the 2014 CD/DVD release of Whitney Houston Live: Her Greatest Performances.

Houston's version of the song appeared at number eight on NMEs Greatest No 1 Singles in History list. It was included in the list of Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2004, Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You" placed at number 65 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema. It was also ranked at number 22 on The Guardians list of Britain's favorite 100 songs, published in May 2002. In February 2014, the song placed at number six on Billboards list of the Top 50 Love Songs of All Time. A year later, in 2015, Rod Couch ranked the song as the number one song of the rock era in his book, The Top 500 Songs of the Rock Era: 1955-2015. In addition, the song has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and was culturally preserved by the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry.

The single is cited as one of Houston's signature songs.

Background

In April 1991, Houston announced that she was to co-star with Kevin Costner in a film titled The Bodyguard. The decision to do the film by Houston initially "didn't impress" Clive Davis, the head of Houston's record label Arista, describing the film's first draft of the script as a "pure thriller", later admitting that he was "nervous" of the film's aspects and what it would do for Houston's film career. Due to Houston's worldwide fame as a music superstar, Davis felt the idea of Houston doing the film "without really previously ever testing her acting chops... was speculative. It was risky. You don't come fully confident that she can do everything. And will the script be up to the mettle of somebody who would become the best-selling vocalist of all time?" Davis wrote a letter to the film's producers, which included Costner, where he told them of his concern of having Houston in the film without any music. The producers agreed with Davis and Houston, in a deal with the film's distributor, Warner Bros. Pictures, signed a deal for control of the soundtrack album and back royalties from each sale the album would make. Houston eventually agreed to record six songs, five of which would be prominently featured in scenes on the film. According to Canadian-American producer David Foster, he met Costner at the premiere of his 1990 film, Dances with Wolves and claimed Costner told him that he would be the right man to produce the soundtrack for the film.

Work on the soundtrack of the film began in Los Angeles that November, the same month where principal photography on the film took place. Between November 1991 and February 1992, in between filming the movie, Houston recorded four songs. The songs included the rock song "Queen of the Night", a song Houston herself co-wrote, a pop-soul rendition of the gospel hymn "Jesus Loves Me" and the pop ballads "Run to You" and "I Have Nothing", the latter two becoming Houston's first collaborations with Foster. For the fifth song, Houston, Costner and the film's music supervisor Maureen Crowe searched for the song they feel could be the "key moment in the plot" of the film. That March, it was suggested by Costner that they cover the Jimmy Ruffin soul ballad, "What Becomes of the Brokenhearted". Houston and Crowe, however, felt the Motown song was not appropriate to be performed at the end of the film.

When the actor suggested the song to be recorded in a slowed down arrangement, Crowe told The Telegraph in 2022 that the arrangement "was like a dirge: 'Happiness is just an illusion, filled with sadness and confusion...'", adding jokingly, "you wanna kill yourself at the end of it!" Houston reportedly told Foster that the song "[didn't] really fit [her]" and, Foster added, "didn't have the 'meat'... for her vocals in a final act song". Houston suggested, politely to Foster, to "try and make one more demo. And make it a little more... interesting?" After British singer Paul Young's rendition of the song from the soundtrack of the film, Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), reached the top 30 of the Billboard Hot 100 that month and became an inescapable radio hit, they agreed to search for another song. According to Crowe, she felt the song chosen had to "answer the question: what would you sing to somebody that you had an affair with, who had just taken a bullet for you and had saved your son's life, but you are going to go in completely separate directions after your brief affair, and you will probably never see him again? So, bittersweet memories. I always say when you're trying to find a song: what does the song have to do in the story? And if you ask enough questions, the song will present itself."

Recording

Crowe later stated that she considered "California oldies", songs from artists such as the Eagles and Neil Young. Houston, who was the executive producer of the soundtrack, suggested an R&B song in Crowe's retelling of the script. Despite film producers being adamant of "not wanting country [music], because Hollywood has a feeling that country makes it something else", Crowe picked out California-based singer Linda Ronstadt's 1975 rendition of Dolly Parton's "I Will Always Love You", from her album, Prisoner in Disguise; Houston agreed to record it.

There were two recordings of the song. The first was recorded live at the Fontainebleau in Miami Beach around March 1992 with Houston and members of her live band.

Costner suggested Houston sing the first verse a cappella. Though Foster told Costner and Houston that he thought the idea of starting the song a cappella was "ridiculous", he reluctantly agreed as he had ideas of adding strings and horns later in the song's studio recording. Costner later explained to Kelly Clarkson his reasoning behind the acapella intro with regard to the plot line of his and Houston's characters in the film: "Whitney was doing almost an apology moment at that point... And what better way to let someone know they really mean what they’re singing to you than when they say, 'I don’t even need to have music behind it. Let me sing to you what I feel about you.'" Though filmmakers already had a backing track for her to sing along to, Houston still suggested using members of her live band so "she could hold notes out to her liking and perform the ballad in a more organic way." The singer reportedly recorded the performance after midnight because, according to Foster, "she was filming all day. She was incredible. Like a laser beam. Like a racehorse – she would just step up to the microphone and go." According to Foster, Houston performed the song three times at the Fontainebleau.

Houston's mother Cissy later wrote that she cried as she witnessed Houston performing it in Miami. According to Foster, Cissy leaned to him and told him "you're witnessing greatness right now, I hope you know that." The song was actually heard twice in the film. Along with Houston's performance, a version sung by John Doe of the punk rock band X could be heard playing on a jukebox in the scene where Houston dances with Costner at a bar.

A studio recording commenced on April 22 at Ocean Way Recording in Los Angeles. Prior to recording, Foster was contacted by Parton over the recording after she had given executives the okay to use the song and the songwriter suggested Houston add the third verse from her original 1974 version. Parton stated because the third verse in her original version was a recitation, country radio programmers at the time chose not to play it, cutting it out to go straight into the final chorus. As a result, when the song was covered by Ronstadt and other singers, the recitation wasn't used. Parton suggested Houston to fully sing the third verse. According to Foster, Houston learned the third verse within several minutes of receiving it and added her own vocal arrangement to the verse.

Parton later recalled that Kevin Costner had also called her to give her okay on using the song. As she explained, "Kevin Costner and his secretary are the ones that loved the song. They had another song that was going to go in that place, and someone had recorded the song they were going to use. They were just in a panic at the last minute. And so they asked me about the song. I sent it. I didn’t hear anything more."

Again, like in the live Miami performances, Houston brought along her bandmates, namely musical director Rickey Minor, drummer Ricky Lawson, percussionist Bashiri Johnson and saxophonist Kirk Whalum, to record on the studio version in Los Angeles.McDonald, Scott. "Whalum to open charity music festival". The Californian. June 11, 2008. Houston recorded two takes of the song at Ocean Way. Foster decided to keep the first take because it was "flawless and raw".

Houston reportedly kept most of the music of the soundtrack from Clive Davis until around July 1992, in which with help from her creative director Robyn Crawford, Houston sent the five tracks she recorded for the album, including "I Will Always Love You" in a DAT tape and CD on July 6, after Arista executives complained of not being able to hear the music. Upon receiving the music, Davis approved of its production and agreed on "I Will Always Love You" in particular, seeing the song's "full potential, lyrically and musically" and looked at it as "raw material. With the lyric, the music, with the potential arrangement, could it fulfill the potential of that scene? And the answer was yes."