Twenty Years After It Changed Her Life, Bonnie Raitt Sang It Like Love Was Still Brand New
In 2009, Bonnie Raitt stepped onto the stage at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and performed “Thing Called Love,” the song that had transformed her career exactly two decades earlier. Yet what made that performance unforgettable was not the anniversary itself. It was the remarkable sight of an artist approaching sixty years old singing the song with the same curiosity, joy, and wonder she carried when she first recorded it. Rather than sounding like a veteran revisiting an old success, Raitt sounded like someone still discovering what that mysterious “thing called love” really meant.
Originally written by John Hiatt, “Thing Called Love” became the title track of Raitt’s breakthrough 1989 album, Nick of Time‘s follow-up release Thing Called Love. Arriving at a crucial turning point in her life, the song helped solidify one of the most celebrated comebacks in modern American music. By the late 1980s, Raitt had spent years earning respect from fellow musicians while struggling to achieve major commercial success. Then came a remarkable resurgence that earned Grammy Awards, introduced her to a broader audience, and secured her place among the most beloved voices in American roots music. Few songs became more closely associated with that chapter than “Thing Called Love,” a spirited reminder that life can surprise us when we least expect it.
The New Orleans performance carried an atmosphere that no studio recording could fully capture. The city itself has long symbolized resilience, soul, and renewal, making it a fitting backdrop for a song about embracing life’s uncertainties. Backed by a seasoned band and greeted by an enthusiastic festival crowd, Raitt moved across the stage with relaxed confidence. Her signature slide guitar lines remained sharp and expressive, while her voice revealed the richness that only years of experience can bring. There was no attempt to recreate 1989. Instead, she allowed the song to evolve naturally with her. Every lyric seemed informed by two additional decades of living, loving, losing, and learning. The result was not nostalgia frozen in time but a conversation between past and present.
What lingers most from that 2009 performance is the sense of authenticity. Many artists return to old hits because audiences expect it. Bonnie Raitt returned to “Thing Called Love” because she still believed in it. The song’s central message remained as powerful as ever: love is unpredictable, confusing, exhilarating, and impossible to fully explain. Watching her sing those words twenty years after they helped reshape her career felt like witnessing someone who had never stopped searching for their meaning. In a music world often obsessed with youth and reinvention, Raitt offered something far rarer. She demonstrated that a great song can grow older without growing old. And on that warm New Orleans afternoon, “Thing Called Love” sounded less like a memory from the past and more like a discovery waiting just around the corner.