Up Where We Belong

"Up Where We Belong"
Single by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes
from the album An Officer and a Gentleman
B-side	"Sweet Lil' Woman" (Cocker)
Released	July 22, 1982 (1982-07-22)
Recorded	Los Angeles, 1982
Genre	Pop[1] soft rock[2] easy listening[3] adult contemporary
Length	4:00 (single) 3:55 (album)
Label	Island
Composer(s)	Jack Nitzsche Buffy Sainte-Marie
Lyricist(s)	Will Jennings
Producer(s)	Stewart Levine
Joe Cocker singles chronology
"Talking Back to the Night" (1982) "Up Where We Belong" (1982) "Threw It Away" (1983)
Jennifer Warnes singles chronology
"Come to Me" (1982) "Up Where We Belong" (1982) "Nights Are Forever" (1983)

"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 Nitzsche and Sainte-Marie in creating the structure of the song and added lyrics about the struggles of life and love and the obstacles that people attempt to dodge. It was released in July of that year to coincide with the release of the film.

The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the US and topped the charts in several other countries. It also sold more than one million copies in the US and was recognized by the Recording Industry Association of America as one of the Songs of the Century. Cocker and Warnes were awarded the Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, and Nitzsche, Sainte-Marie, and Jennings won both the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. Despite the song's success, some industry observers believed it took Cocker away from his musical roots.

In 1984, the gospel duo BeBe & CeCe Winans recorded a religious variation of the song that received airplay on Christian radio stations, and their remake in 1996 earned them a GMA Dove Award. Various versions of the song have also been used to parody the final scene of the film on television shows such as Family Guy, The Simpsons, and South Park.