Kenny Rogers & Dottie West – What Are We Doin’ in Love

“What Are We Doin’ in Love” is a country-pop song written by Randy Goodrum and recorded in 1980–81 as a duet performance by Dottie West with Kenny Rogers. The track was released as a single in March 1981 from Dottie West’s album Wild West. Although the single and album were issued under West’s name, Rogers’s vocal presence on the record is prominent and the recording is widely identified as a West–Rogers duet.

The recording session brought together two artists who had been collaborating since their breakthrough duet, and their partnership by this time had become commercially significant. Dottie West’s career experienced a resurgence from the late 1970s onward in part through her professional pairing with Kenny Rogers, and the two pursued both duet recordings and occasional joint performances. The song’s production aligns with early-1980s country-pop conventions, combining a polished studio sound with emphasis on vocal interplay.

Lyrically, “What Are We Doin’ in Love” frames the emotional uncertainty of a relationship under strain, with the singers alternating lines and joining on the chorus to emphasize the shared question implied by the title. The text balances conversational detail and a repeatable chorus hook, which made the song suitable for both country radio formats and broader pop-oriented playlists. Musically the arrangement is midtempo and melodic, built to foreground harmony and the singers’ contrasting timbres rather than elaborate instrumental showmanship.

Commercially the single was a major country hit, reaching number one on the Billboard Hot Country Singles chart in June 1981, and it stands as the third and final No. 1 country single credited to the West–Rogers partnership. The record’s strong country performance reaffirmed the commercial value of the duo’s collaborations and helped sustain both artists’ visibility on country radio during that period.

The song also crossed over to pop and adult contemporary audiences, reaching the Top 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earning a place on the Adult Contemporary chart, where it further extended the recording’s reach beyond strictly country listeners. That crossover success reflected Kenny Rogers’s already well-established ability to move between country and pop markets and contributed to the single’s broader recognition in 1981.

In terms of credits and billing, the single is formally issued to Dottie West, with Kenny Rogers listed as an uncredited but clearly featured collaborator on many single pressings and in popular accounts; contemporary publicity and later retrospectives treat the recording as a full duet. The production and release strategy—crediting West while prominently featuring Rogers—reflected both artists’ label relationships and promotional considerations at the time, and it did not prevent the marketplace from regarding the record as a Rogers–West team effort.

Today “What Are We Doin’ in Love” is remembered as part of the late-stage run of commercially successful collaborations between Kenny Rogers and Dottie West: a song that combined mainstream production values, a concise lyric hook, and cross-format appeal. Its chart history and continued presence on compilation releases make it a representative example of the duo’s impact on early-1980s country-pop crossover trends.