Maybe you know what song this is.
It plays over the closing credits of a recent French movie called Things To Come (L’avenir). Hearing the song a couple days ago, I thought it was so good that I wondered who recorded it. It sounded very contemporary, so I was quite surprised to see it was recorded in 1959. It was an album track by a group called the Fleetwoods, from Olympia, Washington. Their two #1 hits, “Come Softly To Me” and “Mr. Blue”, came out that same year.
Researching the song, I came across a site called World’s Music Charts. I don’t know anything about the site, or how they calculate their results, but based on their collection of music charts from various countries, they have this song listed as the world’s 4th most popular song. Not the 4th most popular recording, but the 4th most popular song.
From its Wikipedia article:
It has since become a standard and one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century, most notably by the Righteous Brothers. According to the song’s publishing administrator, over 1,500 recordings of [it] have been made by more than 670 artists in multiple languages.
In 1955, three versions of the song charted in the Billboard Top 10 in the United States, and four versions appeared in the Top 20 in the United Kingdom simultaneously, an unbeaten record for any song. The song and “Do They Know It’s Christmas” are the only songs to reach number one in four different recordings in the UK. [The Righteous Brothers] version achieved a second round of great popularity when it was featured in the 1990 film Ghost.
The song was written for a little-known prison movie by two songwriters, Alex North and Hy Zaret, who never became famous.
Here it is as performed by the Righteous Brothers in 1965. It was originally intended as an album track, not a single, and although Phil Spector took credit for the production (that’s the kind of guy he was), it was apparently one of the Righteous Brothers, Bill Medley, who produced it. You’ll recognize it when you hear it.
And here is the Fleetwoods version from their album Mr. Blue. This doesn’t sound like six years earlier to me. I hope you enjoy it, which you might even if you don’t like the famous version. This one is very different.
PS: Want to do something about what happened in Washington today? This might help.
Whereof One Can Speak 🇺🇦 