Calling Dr. Love

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"Calling Dr. Love"
Single by Kiss
from the album Rock and Roll Over
Released February 13, 1977 (US)
Format 7"
Recorded 1976 at Star Theatre, Nanuet, New York
Genre Hard rock, glam rock
Length 3:48
Label Casablanca NB-880 (US)
Writer(s) Gene Simmons
Producer(s) Eddie Kramer
Kiss singles chronology
"Hard Luck Woman"/"Mr. Speed"
"Calling Dr. Love"/"Take Me"
"Christine Sixteen"/"Shock Me"

"Calling Dr. Love" is a song by American hard rock band Kiss, originally released on their 1976 album Rock and Roll Over. It was written by bassist/lead vocalist Gene Simmons at a Holiday Inn in Evansville, Indiana. The song was the second single released from the album, and the band's fourth US Top 20 single, reaching #16 in Billboard. The song's title came from Simmons' recollection of a Three Stooges short called "Men in Black", containing an announcement over a hospital intercom, "Calling Doctor Howard, Doctor Fine, Doctor Howard", meaning Moe, Larry and Curly, respectively.

A live version of the song was included on Alive II, released later in 1977. Since then, "Calling Dr. Love" has appeared on numerous Kiss compilation albums. In 2003, it appeared on Kiss's fifth live album, Kiss Symphony: Alive IV.

Popular culture[edit]


The song also featured in the setlist of the Kiss Alive 35 tour in 2008.

The song is mentioned - albeit briefly - in The Wastelands, the third installment of Stephen King's epic Dark Tower Series.


The song was used in 2009 in a commercial for the cherry-flavored Dr. Pepper. The commercial features Simmons on a couch with several women, in front of a large electric KISS logo which flashes when he says that the new product has a "KISS of cherry." His son enters and scolds him for over-emphasizing the word "kiss," as the flavor is very smooth. The spot ends with "Dr. Love" reminding the audience to trust him, as "I'm a doctor!" A variant of this ad aired during Super Bowl XLIV.


Most recently, the song was featured in the film Magic Mike.


In 1994, the song was recorded and re-arranged by the one-off supergroup Shandi's Addiction (vocalist Maynard James Keenan, guitarist Tom Morello, bassist Billy Gould, and drummer Brad Wilk) as part of the Kiss tribute album Kiss My Ass: Classic Kiss Regrooved.

In 1996, the industrial rock band The Electric Hellfire Club covered the song on their album Calling Dr. Luv, renaming the album and song to reflect the name of their keyboardist The Rev. Dr. Luv who had recently died, which the album was dedicated to. The punk band Hullabaloo covered the song for the Kiss tribute album Hard to Believe: Kiss Covers Compilation.


Notes and references[edit]