I Don't Know How to Love Him has been universally acclaimed as the high point of the "Jesus Christ Superstar" soundtrack since the album's September 1970 release; in 2003 "The Rough Guide to Cult Pop" would assess Elliman's performance: "It's rare to hear a singer combine such power and purity of tone in one song, and none of the famous singers who have covered this ballad since have come close." The choice for the first single release went, however, to the track "Superstar" by Murray Head. When a cover of "I Don't Know How to Love Him" by Helen Reddy began moving up the charts in the
How Will I Know debut at the time, felt the song perfectly matched her sound. He soon contacted Andrews and the song's two writers and implored that they should relinquish the song to him for Houston's debut album. Griffith described his discovery of the song, and what he and Clive Davis thought of it: "We had a lot of R&B-based tunes, we had a few ballads, but we didn't have a pop crossover song. So when I heard 'How Will I Know,' I said 'this is absolutely perfect.' I played it for Clive [and] he fell in love with it. I wasn't very familiar