Houston began singing at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, as a child and became a background vocalist while in high school. She was one of the first black women to appear on the cover of Seventeen after becoming a teen model in 1981. With the guidance of Arista Records chairman Clive Davis, Houston signed to the label at age 19. Her first two studio albums, Whitney Houston (1985) and Whitney (1987), both peaked at number one on the Billboard 200 and are among the best-selling albums of all time. Hit singles from the albums, including "How Will I Know", "Greatest Love of All" and "I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me)", established her as a catalyst in the acceptance of black female artists on MTV. Her third studio album, I'm Your Baby Tonight (1990), yielded two Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles, the title track and "All the Man That I Need". Houston's rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Super Bowl XXV in 1991 received widespread media coverage.
Houston made her acting debut with the romantic thriller film The Bodyguard (1992), which despite its mixed reviews became the tenth highest-grossing film to that date. Its soundtrack won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year and remains the bestselling soundtrack album of all time. It generated multiple hit singles, including "I Have Nothing", "I'm Every Woman" and "I Will Always Love You"; the latter won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year, spent a then-record 14 weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and became the best-selling single by a woman in music history. Subsequently, she went on to star in the films Waiting to Exhale (1995) and The Preacher's Wife (1996), and she recorded their respective soundtracks; the former scored her last Billboard Hot 100 number-one single, "Exhale (Shoop Shoop)", while the latter, produced by Houston herself, became the bestselling gospel album of all time. As a film producer, she produced multicultural movies and series such as Cinderella (1997) and The Princess Diaries and The Cheetah Girls.
Houston's first studio album in eight years, My Love Is Your Love (1998), spawned several hit singles, including the title track, "Heartbreak Hotel", "It's Not Right but It's Okay" and the Academy Award-winning Mariah Carey duet "When You Believe". Following the success, she renewed her contract with Arista for $100 million in 2001, one of the biggest recording deals of all time. However, her personal problems began to overshadow her career. Her 2002 studio album, Just Whitney, received mixed reviews, while her drug use and a tumultuous marriage to singer Bobby Brown received widespread media coverage. After divorcing Brown, Houston returned to the top of the Billboard 200 chart with her final studio album, I Look to You (2009). In February 2012, Houston accidentally drowned in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Beverly Hills, with heart disease and cocaine use as contributing factors. News of her death coincided with the 2012 Grammy Awards, which took place the day following her death, and was covered internationally. Her life and career were dramatized in the 2022 biopic I Wanna Dance with Somebody. Her assets amounted to $250 million, earned over a 25-year career.
Full Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitney_Houston
Discography
Whitney Houston (1985)
Whitney (1987)
I'm Your Baby Tonight (1990)
My Love Is Your Love (1998)
Just Whitney (2002)
One Wish: The Holiday Album (2003)
I Look to You (2009)
We Don't Know
Whitney Houston Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Since I don't know when
We've been only friends
No more but no less
Our friendship we had at best
A voice to console
An ear to confide
Your deepest of feelings inside
[Chorus]
But we didn't know
When we held each other
It would feel so right
We didn't know
On that night we'd be falling in love
I looked at you
You looked at me
In ways we never thought we would be
But like tomorrow's today's mystery
We didn't know
Be it big, be it small
On you I could call
Nothing but to ask
You'd be right there in a flash
A hand I could hold
That friend I could trust
But the love that we shared
Was just platonic between us
[Chorus]
That's what happens
When innocent friends
Turn serious lovers
And we're so happy that
We've fallen in love
And still can be best of friends
When they'd break your heart
And when they'd make you cry
We both would confer
You should give love one more try
We've searched everywhere
For true love to find
Yet who'd think it was us
That we were longing for all the time
'Cause we didn't know
When we held each other
It would feel so right
We didn't know
On that night we'd be falling in love
I looked at you
And you looked at me
In ways we never thought
We would be
But just like the future
No one can see
We didn't know
[Chorus]
The lyrics of the song "We Don't Know" by Whitney Houston reflect the story of two friends who didn't know they were in love with each other until one night when they embraced and felt a strong connection. The song appears to be about two people who were only friends but discovered that there was more than just a platonic relationship between them. The song starts with Whitney Houston singing "We didn't know we didn't know," and it sounds like she's referring to the fact that the two friends didn't know they had romantic feelings for each other. It could also imply that they didn't know what their relationship would turn into.
As the song progresses, Whitney sings about how the deep bond they shared as just friends. She talks about how her friend was always there for her whenever she needed someone to confide in, someone to hold her hand, or someone to help her pick up the pieces of her broken heart. However, the two friends never realized they could be much more. Until one night when they embraced each other and felt something they never felt before, they didn't know that they were falling in love with each other.
Towards the end of the song, Whitney Houston sings about how the two have been searching for true love in all the wrong places, but little did they know that they had each other all along. The song has a happy ending indicating that they were happy they fell in love and that they can be best of friends. The lyrics of the song reflect the story of two friends who discovered love in an unexpected way.
Line by Line Meaning
We didn't know we didn't know
We were unaware that we had any feelings for each other
Since I don't know when
For a long time
We've been only friends
We only saw each other as friends
No more but no less
We did not have any romantic feelings for each other
Our friendship we had at best
Our relationship was built upon our friendship
A voice to console
I could always go to this person for comfort
An ear to confide
I could always trust this person with my deepest secrets
That someone you tell
This person was the one I confided in
Your deepest of feelings inside
This person was the one I trusted with my strongest emotions
But we didn't know
But we were unaware
When we held each other
When we embraced
It would feel so right
How natural and perfect it felt
On that night we'd be falling in love
That night we would develop romantic feelings for each other
I looked at you
I saw you
You looked at me
You saw me
In ways we never thought we would be
In a way we never thought possible
But like tomorrow's today's mystery
Like the future, we couldn't predict this
Be it big, be it small
Regardless of the problem's size
On you I could call
I knew I could ask for your help
Nothing but to ask
I only needed to ask
You'd be right there in a flash
You'd come immediately to help
A hand I could hold
A comforting presence
That friend I could trust
A friend I knew I could count on
But the love that we shared
The feelings we developed for each other
Was just platonic between us
We only saw each other as friends
That's what happens
This is what occurred
When innocent friends
When purely platonic friends
Turn serious lovers
Develop romantic feelings for each other
And we're so happy that
And we are grateful
We've fallen in love
We have developed romantic feelings for each other
And still can be best of friends
And still maintain our strong friendship
When they'd break your heart
When someone hurts you
And when they'd make you cry
And when someone makes you upset
We both would confer
We would talk it out together
You should give love one more try
You should keep trying to find love
We've searched everywhere
We have looked everywhere
For true love to find
To find a genuine connection
Yet who'd think it was us
But it turned out to be us all along
That we were longing for all the time
That we had been searching for each other all along
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: STEVIE WONDER
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind