Roberta Flack -- Killing Me Softly with His Song

 

As noted earlier in the first ROY article for today, I was going to put up a second ROY article for the Fourth of July holiday, and if it hadn't been for finding out that Eddie Murphy was back for another round of "Beverly Hills Cop", I would have just focused on this classic ballad instead.

Now, Roberta Flack already has representation on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" through a 1983 duet that she did with Peabo Bryson called "Born to Love", but of course, I just had to include what is arguably her most famous song, "Killing Me Softly with His Song". Released on January 22nd 1973, I used to hear this on AM radio as a kid but there was one time when the classic really hit my soul...as cornball as that may sound. 

When we were little, it was frequently the case that my family would visit other families for New Year's Day or simply just to socialize. The visits would go fairly far into the night, and if there were other kids involved, we would be playing with them in the basement while the grownups chattered in the living room. My brother and I would get dragged reluctantly back to the car for the drive home. Not surprisingly, we would be getting drowsy in the back seat and the car radio would be on. The radio was usually on CKEY Toronto which used to play music like any other station before it became multicultural CHKT in the early 1990s. In any case, at that time at night, a lot of the romantic ballads would come on, and guess what, one of those ballads was indeed Flack's "Killing Me Softly with His Song". As I was in that twilight zone between wakefulness and sleep, the song hazily entered my ears while the night sky and lights were speeding by and some of the cool breeze was flying through the slightly ajar window. It made for a perfect environment for a soulful lullaby as the singer's dulcet tones gently lay me down to sleep, bracketed by the mellow tones of the DJ. I don't particularly like to remember much from my childhood but that one memory will always stick with me.

"Killing Me Softly with His Song" went to No. 1 in the United States, Canada and Australia, and according to Wikipedia, the ballad spent five non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 in America which beat every other record that year, although Billboard would ultimately rank it at No. 3 for 1973. Once again, I've been left surprised on finding out that the Roberta Flack single was actually a cover for the original by Lori Lieberman who had provided the lyrics with Norman Gimbel with Charles Fox composing the melody. That original was released in 1972 but wasn't successful.

Just by luck, I was able to find the Top 10 on Oricon for January 22nd 1973. Allow me to show you what came into the top 3 slots.

1. Shiro Miya & The Pinkara Trio -- Onna no Michi (女のみち）

2. Naomi Chiaki -- Kassai （喝采）

3. Mari Amachi -- Futari no Nichiyoubi (ふたりの日曜日)