"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.

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.

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.

On February 24, 1982, Joe Cocker performed "I'm So Glad I'm Standing Here Today" with the jazz group the Crusaders at the Grammy Awards.

[6] She had been a fan of Cocker's since her teens and at one time had a poster of him on her wall showing him performing at Woodstock,[7] and her love for the singer was still evident on this night many years later.

"[8] Meanwhile, plans were being made for An Officer and a Gentleman to be distributed by Paramount Pictures, and studio executive Frank Mancuso was insistent upon having some kind of music to use to promote the film.

[9] The director of the film, Taylor Hackford, was also interested in producing an original title song to help market it, but there was no remaining budget for such a recording.

One of the six songs that Warnes had placed in the top half of the Billboard Hot 100 at that point was the number six hit "Right Time of the Night" from 1977.

[12] Her soundtrack credits included the Oscar-nominated "One More Hour" from Ragtime and the Oscar-winning "It Goes Like It Goes" from Norma Rae,[11] which, like the Hackford film, also had a lead female character who worked in a factory.

He said, "I discussed with Taylor, since the film centered really around Richard [Gere] and Debra [Winger] primarily, that maybe we should have a duet"[9] and that with Cocker and Warnes they would be "matching the characters to some degree.

It was so unusual – that 'Love, lift us up ... '"[15] The last scene of the film brought the story to a happy ending, and Hackford wanted to have a song playing during the closing credits that would act as a reflection of the relationship portrayed and incorporate the score composed by Jack Nitzsche.

[14] Nitzsche was having trouble writing a theme as he was scoring the film, and his longtime friend Buffy Sainte-Marie played him the melody for a song she had started working on called "Up Where We Belong".

[16] Nitzsche wanted to have Sainte-Marie write the rest of the lyrics, but her background in folk music caused Sill and Hackford to look elsewhere.

[11] Cocker, on the other hand, described the demo as "dreadful",[15] despite his appreciation of some of the lyrics and the fact that Jennings was the lyricist on "I'm So Glad I'm Standing Here Today" and his more recent single, "Talking Back to the Night".

"[14] Cocker admitted, "I'd sat with the words in the afternoon but still hadn't remembered them, so we had to draw 'em up on big blocks of wood and stuff.

[12] That same issue also marked its first appearance on the magazine's list of the 50 most popular Adult Contemporary songs in the US, where it stayed for 25 weeks, 6 of which were at its peak position at number three.

[25] The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) awarded the song both Gold and Platinum certification for achieving sales of 500,000 and one million copies, respectively, on January 17, 1989.

Add radio's ongoing affection for strong duets and a restrained performance by Cocker that matches him more sympathetically with Warnes's gentler style, and this track should find friends at A/C and mainstream pop stations.

[27] Cocker and Warnes won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals on February 23 of that year.

[28] Backstage at the Grammys Warnes said about working with Cocker, "I was told it was the weirdest pairing ever,"[35] and regarding their April 11 appearance at the 55th Academy Awards,[36] she admitted, "Neither of us were comfortable in the Oscar world.

"[7] Her visceral reaction to his death parallels the powerful chemistry they had in their many performances of the song, which she had summed up years earlier: "I always thought the pairing had a strong ring of truth to it.

[15] They had put out Cocker's first project for the label, Sheffield Steel, in June 1982, just a month before the song needed to be on store shelves if it was to coincide with the opening of the film.

[41] Capitol had been responsible for rejuvenating the careers of Tina Turner and Heart in the mid-80s, so a push was on to do so for their new client with his next project, the 1986 album Cocker.

[71] Their 1984 cover of the song from their album Lord Lift Us Up reached number 27 on the Christian Radio Hits chart[72] issued by SoundScan.

[72] The part of the score of An Officer and a Gentleman that Jennings used in writing the chorus for "Up Where We Belong" can be heard in the final scene of the film in which Gere picks Winger up in his arms and carries her out of the factory past clapping co-workers.

The last shot of the film freezes on their exit as the score comes to a big orchestral finish, and the credits start to roll as Cocker and Warnes begin singing the song at the chorus.