This Love

Grounded in C minor with a modal, blues-touched Aeolian sensibility, 'This Love' refuses conventional dominant-chord resolution in favour of a ♭VI–♭VII–i loop that feels cyclical and trapped — mirroring the lyrical content of a relationship that won't end cleanly. The Stevie Wonder-inspired rhythmic pocket (documented by the band) pushes the harmony into blue-eyed soul territory, while the rock guitar crunch delivers its pop-rock identity. The piano riff is the harmonic anchor; everything else orbits it.

Adam Levine wrote 'This Love' on the very day his girlfriend packed up and left town. Caught between heartbreak and elation — she was leaving as Maroon 5 were about to enter the studio — he channelled the emotional collision into lyrics he later described as the most erotic he had ever written. Jesse Carmichael co-wrote the track. Levine told Rolling Stone the explicit lines about keeping a lover 'coming every night' were a direct rejection of generic love-song clichés.

Released as the second single from Maroon 5's debut album Songs About Jane on January 12, 2004, 'This Love' fused R&B-inflected blue-eyed soul with guitar-crunch pop rock to become one of the defining tracks of the mid-2000s. It topped multiple US Billboard component charts and four European national charts, was the third-most-played song of 2004, and earned a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals in 2006. Raw, confessional, and driven by Stevie Wonder-inspired grooves, it remains Maroon 5's most enduring artistic statement.