"Love Really Hurts Without You" is a song recorded by Trinidad-born UK soul singer Billy Ocean. The song – written by Ocean under his real name name Les[lie] Charles with the track's producer Ben Findon – was the second single recorded in the name Billy Ocean (although the singer had had several previous releases using other stage names) and provided Ocean with his first chart record in 1976.

The song remains tied with the 1977 #2 UK hit "Red Light Spells Danger" as Ocean's second best all-time UK charting record, after "When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Going" which had a four-week #1 UK tenure in 1985. It is often cited for its Motown influence.

At the time of his single's success, Ocean was quoted (indirectly) as considering himself "the most surprised person in the world that 'Love Really Hurts Without You' became a hit. It's his tenth release, and he'd got to the point where he assumed his records would be flops." Ocean had been pursuing a singing career in London by 1969, with a stint singing demos at Southern Music Studio on Denmark Street leading to Ocean's working as a studio "gofer" for producer Ben Findon. At the time of his meeting Findon, Ocean was working on the assembly line at Ford Dagenham: (Billy Ocean quote:) "I would do sessions during the day and after I had finished a session I would go work at Ford all through the night. It half killed me, but while I was doing that I met this producer who gave me [the] opportunity [to record 'Love Really Hurts...']." The inaugural collaboration between Ocean and Findon was in fact the 1974 single "On the Run" which was credited to Scorched Earth, after which "Whose Little Girl Are You" became the first single recorded and released (8 August 1975) in the name Billy Ocean.

Prior to meeting Findon, Ocean had worked as a pattern cutter at a fashion house on Savile Row: when a co-worker mentioned that she was selling her piano Ocean impulsively borrowed £23 from his boss to purchase it - (Billy Ocean quote:) "We carried the piano up to the third floor and it fitted perfectly in my little bedroom" (Ocean was living in his parents' council flat off Brick Lane) - and taught himself to play it: (Billy Ocean quote:) "The novelty of it was coming home every lunchtime and evening and tinkling my piano until eventually I did get something out of it which was the song 'Love Really Hurts Without You'. My left hand started playing the melody and my right hand just did some down beats and my voice just started coming out with [the opening lyric] 'You run around town like a fool and you think that it's groovy' and the song just came together there and then."

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