Up Where We Belong Up Where We Belong "Up Where We Belong" is a song written by Jack Nitzsche, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Will Jennings that was recorded by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes for the 1982 film "An Officer and a Gentleman". Warnes was recommended to sing a song from the film because of her previous soundtrack successes, and she had the idea for the song to be a duet that she would perform with Cocker. Jennings selected various sections of the score by Nitsche and Sainte-Marie in creating the structure of the song and added lyrics about the struggles of life and love
Up Where We Belong explained, "After "Civilized Man" came out, Joe, Michael Lang [Cocker's manager], and I spent a lot of time zeroing in on just what the heck Joe Cocker was really all about. And it's my firm belief that Joe is a rocker." His feeling was that "Up Where We Belong" turned out to be a double-edged sword. "It helped Joe in one sense, but it was very, very detrimental to him in another. It gave him a hit record and brought his name back to the mass market again. However, because it was such a pop, middle-of-the-road record, it took away