"Higher Love" was Winwood's first Billboard Hot 100 number-one song, topping the chart for one week beginning 30 August 1986.

"Higher Love" also spent four weeks atop the US Billboard Album Rock Tracks chart and earned two Grammy Awards, for Record of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.

Whitney Houston covered the song in 1990 and it was included as a bonus track on the Japanese edition of her third studio album I'm Your Baby Tonight.

"[8] The music video for the song uses the shorter single version and was shot in June 1986 by directors Peter Kagan and Paula Greif.

A cover of "Higher Love" was released as a single by Norwegian DJ and record producer Kygo and late American singer Whitney Houston on 28 June 2019.

Houston's cover of the Winwood track was originally included on the Japanese edition of her third studio album, I'm Your Baby Tonight (1990).

In the UK, "Higher Love" was a commercial success, surpassing the Winwood version in terms of chart performance.

In the U.S., "Higher Love" debuted at number 63 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, with 6.6 million US streams in its first week;[40] it was also its peak position.

Notably, "Higher Love" was played immediately following Joe Biden's victory speech after his election as the 46th President of the United States on 7 November 2020.

A nation healed, 'Higher Love' backed up the message, particularly for those who know all the words... Few sentiments could so effectively summarize the weary travails of the American collective consciousness during the past four years.

In the end, the instructor is accidentally kicked in the face by one of the dancers and wakes up in a present-day outdoor café, revealing that the 1980s aerobics class was just a dream and that the male lead is actually her waiter.