The Dark Story Behind “You Light Up My Life” and Its Songwriter Joseph Brooks

“You Light Up My Life” spent ten weeks at number one in 1977, one of the longest runs any song had at the top of the Billboard Hot 100 that decade. It's been sung at weddings, played at funerals, and covered by everyone from LeAnn Rimes to Whitney Houston. Almost nobody who loves the song knows that its writer spent his final years awaiting trial for raping 11 women, that he killed himself rather than face a jury, or that his own son is currently serving 25 years to life for strangling his...