[5] By 1975, Donna Summer had been living in Germany for eight years and had participated in several musical theatre shows.

He turned the lyric into a full disco song and asked Summer to record it.

"[6] A tape of the song was sent to Casablanca Records president Neil Bogart in the US, and he played it at a party at his home.

He later contacted Moroder and suggested that he make the track longer - possibly as long as 20 minutes.

Nevertheless, she imagined herself as an actress (namely Marilyn Monroe)[7] playing the part of someone in sexual ecstasy.

In the US, it became Summer's first US Top 40 hit, spending two weeks at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on February 7 and 14, 1976,[8] being held off the number one spot by Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover" and logged four weeks atop the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart,[9] as well number three on the Billboard Hot Soul Singles chart.

[citation needed] As a result of the success of the song, Summer would be named "the first lady of love," which labeled her with a sexually oriented, fantasy image from which she would struggle to free herself.

[13] According to Peter Shapiro, a freelance British music journalist, the song was marked by "little more than Donna Summer simulating an orgasm over a background of blaxploitation cymbals, wah-wah guitars, a funky-butt clarinet riff, and some synth chimes."

The song reached number two in the American charts and was largely responsible for the development of the twelve inch single.

Note: This Dutch re-release was issued shortly after the song became a hit internationally, with "Baby" being added to the title.