Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?
"Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?" is a song written by Bryan Adams, Michael Kamen and Robert John "Mutt" Lange, and recorded by Adams for the film "Don Juan DeMarco" (1995). The melody is used as a musical motif through the film, and the song is featured three times in the movie, twice performed by other artists in Spanish, and finally performed by Adams himself during the closing credits. The Adams version of the song, which features flamenco guitarist Paco de Lucia, is featured on the soundtrack album and also on the  album "18 til I Die", which was released over a year later. The song stayed at number one for five weeks on the "Billboard" Hot 100 in the United States, making it the third number-one song for the songwriting team. It also went to number one in Canada, Australia, Austria, and Switzerland while reaching the top five in 10 additional countries, including France and the United Kingdom, and the top ten in a further four countries. The song was nominated for Best Original Song at the 68th Academy Awards but lost to "Colors of the Wind" from "Pocahontas". Critical  reception. "Music & Media" commented, "Everything is there to make it work: a film, "Don Juan De Marco", a ballad, a long song title but nothing between brackets, guitarist Paco De Lucia and Adams' hoarse voice." Christine Coulter, librarian/programmer at Downtown Radio/Belfast stated, "It's absolutely different from his previous film ballads. The film, which will be issued here in May I believe, is not the reason we play it. For us it's a track that stands fully on its own." British magazine "Music Week" gave it three out of five, writing that "Bryan comes over all Hispanic  for this strong ballad which arrives replete with Spanish guitar flourishes and castanets." The magazine's Alan Jones described it as "a simple, singalong song in waltztime, with acoustic Spanish style guitar picking." Music video. The music video for the song was shot in Spain at Casa los Pavos Reales, Málaga starring Cecilie Thomsen and Amira Casar. It was directed by the music video director Anton Corbijn and was released in May 1995. Track listing. CD single