One of the six songs that Warnes had placed in the top half of the "Billboard" Hot 100 at that point was the number six hit "Right Time of the Night" from 1977. Her soundtrack credits included the Oscar-nominated "One More Hour" from "Ragtime" and the Oscar-winning "It Goes Like It Goes" from "Norma Rae", which, like the Hackford film, also had a lead female character who worked in a factory. Hackford initially rejected the idea of Warnes singing a song for "An Officer and a Gentleman" "because he felt she had too sweet a sound," but Warnes met with Sill and discussed the possibility of doing so: "I suggested to Joel that I sing on that film in a duet with Joe Cocker." Sill thought this was an interesting idea but needed to convince Hackford of that. He said, "I discussed with Taylor, since the film centered really around ] and ] primarily, that maybe we should have a duet" and that with Cocker and Warnes they would be "matching the characters to some degree. The dynamic between the two was the soft and the rough, that, to some degree, Debra Winger's character was very, very soft in the picture, even though she was in a rough environment. And Richard Gere's character, to some degree, was really a rough character until he was softened up by her." Hackford thought the idea had potential and now had another friend in the music industry to ask for a favor. Chris Blackwell was the owner of Island Records, and Cocker was now recording for Island. "I called Chris and said I want to do this, and he just, on the phone, said, 'OK, I'll make this happen. What would initially convince Cocker to work on the project, however, was a small portion of the lyrics. He described it as "the 'Up' part, which is what made me realize it had hit potential. It was so unusual – that 'Love, lift us up ...