Forever, for Always, for Love Songwriting Credits by Luther Vandross

Vandross has a hand in the writing of seven of the eight tracks, and is the sole writer of four: the title song, "Promise Me", "She Loves Me Back" and "Once You Know How". Marcus Miller co-wrote "Bad Boy" and "You're the Sweetest One", and Nat Adderley Jr. co-wrote "Better Love", so the two men playing bass and keyboards on nearly every track also account for the album's only outside co-writing. The one track Vandross had no part in writing is "Since I Lost My Baby", a Temptations single from 1965 written by Smokey Robinson and Warren "Pete" Moore of the Miracles. Track one is a split case worth reading carefully: "Bad Boy" is a Vandross and Miller original, and the "Having a Party" section quotes the chorus of the 1962 Sam Cooke song, which is why Cooke is a credited writer on the opening track and nowhere else. Production is Vandross alone on all eight, the first album he carried without a co-producer's name beside his.