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whileiamdying · 1 year

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“The Song Found Me.” An Oral History of Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly”

Roberta Flack, Charles Fox, and Lori Lieberman Discuss the Genesis of an Iconic Song

By Marc Myers December 14, 2022

Roberta Flack didn’t set out to become a performer. Though she had played organ and piano in church growing up in North Carolina, she attended Howard University intending to become a music teacher. Soon after Flack became a grad student in music, her father suddenly died and she took a job teaching music and English.

While teaching in Washington, D.C., Flack began to sing and accompany herself on piano at local clubs. She was discovered by soul-jazz pianist Les McCann, who arranged for her to audition at Atlantic.

From 1969 to 1971, Flack recorded a series of songs that either didn’t chart or didn’t chart spectacularly well. Then in 1972, she recorded a Scottish folk song called “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face,” which went to No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart. Her next single was “Where Is the Love,” recorded as a duet with Donny Hathaway. It reached No. 5. In 1973, while on a flight, she heard a folk song through her headset connected to the airplane’s audio system.

On a napkin, she re-ordered the lyrics and sketched an arrangement to “Killing Me Softly with His Song.” Her version went to No. 1 for five weeks on the Billboard pop chart. Flack won two Grammys, and the song won Song of the Year and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999. The song’s lyricist, Norman Gimbel, died just prior to these interviews.

Charles Fox (composer): When I was eighteen in the late 1950s, I spent two years in Paris studying composition with Nadia Boulanger. By the early 1960s, I was a New York pianist with a background in classical, jazz, and Latin music. Then in 1967, I composed and scored the music for my first movie, The Incident, a film noir. Barbarella followed and, in 1969, producer Stanley Jaffe asked me to come out to Hollywood to score the Paramount film Goodbye, Columbus. That’s when I saw my life coming together as a composer.

In ’69, I was asked to score and write songs for the movie Pufnstuf, based on the children’s TV series. But I needed a lyricist. BMI executive Ron Anton suggested Norman Gimbel. Norman had written English lyrics for bossa nova hits, such as “The Girl from Ipanema” and Michel Legrand’s “Watch What Happens” and “I Will Wait for You.” Norman and I hit it off.

By 1971, we wanted to develop songs for a female singer and get the songs recorded, the way Burt Bacharach and Hal David did with Dionne Warwick. We went to clubs and auditioned quite a few. Then someone recommended Lori Lieberman. We heard her and loved her sound. She had a beautiful alto voice. Norman and I started writing for her. Lori recorded song demos, and we made a deal with Capitol to produce four albums. We soon had nine songs in the can for the first one. Capitol was enthusiastic but wanted a tenth song.

Norman came over to my house in Encino. As I sat at my grand piano, Norman stood in the piano’s curve facing me. He skimmed through his notebook of ideas. At some point, he looked up and said, “What about this—‘Kill us softly with some blues?’” Norman said the line came from an Argentine novel called Hopscotch, by Julio Cortázar, published in English in 1966. Pianist and composer-arranger Lalo Schifrin had given him the book.

I liked the “kill us softly” part, but “with some blues” sounded dated. By ’71, pop music had entered the folk-rock era of singer-songwriters like James Taylor, Carly Simon, and Joni Mitchell. Norman thought for a second and agreed. “What about ‘Killing me softly with his song’?” I liked it. Norman went home to Beverly Hills. A few hours later, he called with the song’s words. I wrote them all down. His lyrics opened with a verse: “I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style/And so I came to see him, to listen for a while/And there he was, this young boy, a stranger to my eyes.”

Parts of the song reminded me of my life, of the pain that comes with loving someone deeply, of feeling moved by music, which is the universal language. More than anything, music makes us feel.

The verse was followed by the chorus: “Strumming my pain with his fingers/Singing my life with his words/Killing me softly with his song/ Telling my whole life with his words/Killing me softly with his song.” When I set to work on the music, I repeated the lyric “killing me softly with his song” because I needed an extra musical phrase to com- plete the melody I wrote. I also added pauses in two lines: “Telling my whole life [pause] with his words/killing me softly [pause] with his song.” The pauses provide the lyric with a moment of reflection. That’s part of the storytelling process from the composer’s viewpoint.

As I wrote, Norman’s lyrics guided my melody and harmony. But I was also writing for Lori. I could hear her singing the song in my ear. So I wrote the music as an introspective ballad. About a half hour later, I was done. The next morning, we asked Lori to come over. I played the piano and sang the song for her. She said the song reminded her of hearing Don McLean perform and being moved by his songs. She had seen him recently at an L.A. club. Then I played the song as Lori sang from a lyric sheet Norman had handed her.

Lori Lieberman (folk singer): Hearing Don McLean perform his song “Empty Chairs” affected me deeply. I wrote a poem about how I felt right then and there. Later that night, I called Norman and read him my poem. He thought it would match one of the titles he had written in his notebook of ideas. Over the course of the next two days, Norman asked me many questions about my experience. I answered them to help get the lyric just right. I’ve always been proud to be instrumental in the creation of “Killing Me Softly.” I want nothing other than to be acknowledged for my part in the inception of this beautiful song.

CF: We recorded the song in 1972 at Western Recorders in Hollywood.

Lori played guitar in concert but not on the song’s recording or the album. For that, I contracted studio guitarists. I arranged “Killing Me Softly,” and Norman and I coproduced. I played a piano introduction, two guitars joined, and then Lori started singing the first verse. When we turned in the album, Capitol thought “Killing Me Softly” should be the single. To promote the album, Capitol programmed the song on American Airlines. Back then, airlines had different music channels—rock, classical, pop. Their playlists were on loops. Passengers couldn’t skip songs or go back. You had to listen all the way through before the playlist repeated.

Roberta Flack (singer, pianist, and arranger): In 1972, I was on a flight from New York to Los Angeles and was listening to the plane’s music channels. That’s where I first heard Lori Lieberman’s version of “Killing Me Softly.” I probably heard it four times on the flight. The lyrics were haunting and the chord changes were lush. I could feel the song and knew I could tell the song’s story my way.

Parts of the song reminded me of my life, of the pain that comes with loving someone deeply, of feeling moved by music, which is the universal language. More than anything, music makes us feel. As I listened, I jotted down the lyrics on a napkin. I also wrote down music lines and made notes on how I was going to arrange the song.

CF: Back then, I was working on several Paramount projects at once.

I had an office on the studio lot and spent a lot of time in their music library. One day, as I walked through the library, someone said I had a phone call. When I picked up the receiver, Roberta Flack was on the other end. Roberta said, “We haven’t met but I’m going to sing your song.” I was floored. Her cover of “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” had just won two Grammys.

Months later, I read a review that said Roberta performed “Killing Me Softly” during a concert run at L.A.’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion the night before. I said to Norman, “Let’s go down and see her.” We went, and I could hear that she was developing her own way with the song. She sounded beautiful, but it wasn’t yet the record that became a big hit.

RF: In the studio, I gave my arrangement a 2/4 feel and took it a little faster than the original. I wanted a groove that deepened the song’s meaning. The groove is the heartbeat of a song. Grady Tate played drums and Ralph MacDonald was on percussion. I also decided to open the song with the chorus rather than the first verse. “Strumming my pain with his fingers” was such a strong line. The rest of the chorus was powerful and set the song’s tone.

I arranged my background singers like a choir. I grew up in the church. The harmonies never left me. They deeply influence all of my music. I also decided to play the electric piano rather than an acoustic piano. It has a more soothing sound at times. I felt it expressed what I felt in a way that the acoustic piano could not. If you listen carefully, you realize that the song is based on circles. It never ends. I chose to end the song on a major sixth chord instead of a seventh. To the ear, the sixth ends the cycle and the song.

CF: Roberta’s record became my first big hit. Since then, there have been hundreds of versions, including one by the Fugees in 1996. But Roberta’s remains the one that’s continually played around the world. There obviously was magic in her voice and in her arrangement deci- sions. As soon as the song opens and you hear her voice, you have to listen to it. Many years later, in 2004, when I was being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Roberta agreed to present me with my award. Earlier in the day, after the rehearsal, she and I were alone in the hotel ballroom.

I said to her, “Roberta, how lucky for me that you found the song.” Roberta, who’s a very beautiful, spiritual person, said, “No, Charles, the song found me.”

#Charles Fox #folk music #Grove Press #Killing Me Softly #Lori Lieberman #Marc Myers #music #oral histories #Roberta Flack #songwriting

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lyrical-escapes · 2 years

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I felt all flushed with fever, Embarrassed by the crowd I felt he found my letters, And read each one out loud I prayed that he would finish, But he just kept right on

Strumming my pain with his fingers Singing my life with his words Killing me softly with his song Killing me softly with his song Telling my whole life with his words Killing me softly with his song

#lori lieberman #killing me softly #songs #music #intimacy #stories #playlistpurple #Spotify

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covers-on-spotify · 2 years

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“Killing Me Softly with His Song”

Original by Lori Lieberman

Covered by stories feat. Rozzi

#music #cover #cover song #Lori Lieberman #Rozzi

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slackville-records · 4 months

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youtube

Hanne Boel, pretty sweet cover of Killing Me Softly

Hanne Boel is a Danish singer. Over the course of her career, she has sold over 2.5 million records, and has had great success on the Scandinavian charts, although her work is less well known throughout the rest of the world. Wikipedia Born: 1957 (age 66 years), Bagsværd, Denmark

"Killing Me Softly with His Song" is a song composed by Charles Fox with lyrics by Norman Gimbel. The lyrics were written in collaboration with Lori Lieberman after she was inspired by a Don McLean performance in late 1971. Denied writing credit by Fox and Gimbel, Lieberman released her version of the song in 1972, but it did not chart. The song has been covered by many other artists.

In 1973, it became a number-one hit in the United States, Australia and Canada for Roberta Flack, and also reached number six on the UK Singles Chart. In 1996, Fugees recorded the song with Lauryn Hill on lead vocals. Their version became a number-one hit in twenty countries; including Germany, where it became the first single to debut atop the chart. The version by Flack won the 1974 Grammy for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The version by Fugees won the 1997 Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.

#mmv #hanne boel #norway #killing me softly

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bookgeekgrrl · 10 months

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My media this week (23-29 Jul 2023)

📚 STUFF I READ 📚

🥰 The Rift (seapigeon) - 53K, modern college no powers AU - there's witchcraft and ghosts and curses and art student steve and science nerd bucky and it was all very good!

😍 Six Kids and a Winnebago series (Oddree13) - 91K, omegaverse Steddie - this series is a thoroughly delightful domestic omegaverse(lite) set post s4 - excellent characterizations, great sense of time/place & really fantastic music references

🥰 Longing and Belonging (enjambament) - 44K, geraskier - governess!Jaskier, lots of great family stuff with Ciri & Yen [reread, a definite fave]

😍 if I'm gonna get back to you someday (napricot) - 46K, post Endgame fixit with "a clusterfuck of Steves" from different multiverses - so many good emotions!

😊 Roommate Wanted (Lihhelsing, tinkerbclla) - 66K, modern Steddie roommates-to-lovers, part epistolary with a dash of identity porn

💖💖 +110K of shorter fic so shout out to these I really loved 💖💖

the premature awakening of Bucky Barnes [at the hands of stupid, sexy, Post-run Steve] (MaddieWritesStucky (Madeleine_Ward)) - MCU: stucky, 3K - modern no powers stucky, several months on in the relationship between stripper!Bucky & architecht Steve [reread]

Galatea (saltandbyrne) - Inception: Arthur/Eames, 16K - a very good and delightfully melancholic modern myth telling

Shelter Case (Coragyps) - Suits: Mike/Harvey, 7K - futuristic dark dystopian omegaverse [reread]

Let Me Keep You (LeeHan) - MCU: stucky, 4K - Steve's oral fixation PWP [reread]

📺 STUFF I WATCHED 📺

D20: Adventuring Party - s1, e15-18

D20: A Crown of Candy - s5, e15-17

Good Omens - s2, e1-6

🎧 PODCASTS 🎧

What Next: TBD Plus - Why Tech Lays Women Off First

⭐ Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus - Julia Gets Wise with Jane Fonda

Fire Island: The Tea - Thomás Matos

50 Years of Hip-Hop - 1991: "Mind Playing Tricks on Me" by Geto Boys

50 Years of Hip-Hop - 1993: "Hip Hop Hooray" by Naughty by Nature

Hot and Bothered - Live from Pemberley: The 2005 Movie (with Helen Zaltzman and Jenny Owen Youngs)

Re: Dracula - July 24: There Will be Some Trouble

Rachel Maddow Presents: Déjà News - Episode 6: “Hello America, this is Addis Ababa.”

50 MPH - 7 MPH / A Crash Course in Jan De Bont (with Bilge Ebiri)

⭐ Endless Thread - Best of Summer: The Loudest Sound

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Mapping the Gay Guides

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Spaces for Spies

Switched on Pop - Barbie and the plasticity of pop

Shedunnit - Cricket and Crime

Re: Dracula - July 26: Just Starting for Home

Ologies with Alie Ward - Sciuridology (SQUIRRELS) with Karen Munroe

Stuff The British Stole - The Fever Tree Hunt

The Waves Plus - How a Drag Queen Recreated the American Dream

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Knight’s Spider Web Farm

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Amazon Night Hikes

Our Opinions Are Correct - Encore Episode: We're in the wrong timeline, with Connie Willis and R.F. Kuang

99% Invisible #546 - The Country of the Blind

50 Years of Hip-Hop - 1981: "Rapture" by Blondie

⭐ Decoder Ring Plus - A Brief History of Making Out

Twenty Thousand Hertz+ - Zelda: A Beep to the Past

Dear Prudence Plus - My Boyfriend Hid His Hobby From Me—Civil War Reenactments. Help!

⭐ Into It - Country Music’s Race Problem

What Next: TBD Plus - Washington vs. A.I.

Rivals: Music's Greatest Feuds - Robbie Robertson vs. Levon Helm: Broken Band

Re: Dracula - July 28: Four Days in Hell

Re: Dracula - July 29: Another Tragedy

Hit Parade Plus - The Bridge: Don’t Believe Me, Just Watch

⭐ Strong Songs - "Killing Me Softly With His Song," as sung by Lauryn Hill, Roberta Flack, & Lori Lieberman

Wait Wait… Don't Tell Me! - WWDTM: Randall Park

Fire Island: The Tea - Bambi Sue: Dredging Up the Past

🎶 MUSIC 🎶

Presenting The Who

People Just Wanna Have Fun [Kool & The Gang] {2023}

The Beach Boys Radio • Popular

"One Thing Leads To Another" [The Fixx] Radio

Dream Theater

Presenting Bruno Mars

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meat-wentz · 11 months

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This might be only me but Killing Me Softly has some peterick vibes I think. Especially the sad original Lori Lieberman version. Meeting Patrick. Patrick singing all the words he's written and understanding them because he feels that way too (What A Catch vibes) and just. Yeah this could just be me.

this is going to make me do something soooooo drastic

#HELLO #BARKING #YOUR MIND #SOFTNSQUISHABLE #ASK #HELP #HELP HELP HELP HELP HELP HELP HELP HELP HELP

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iconicpopstar · 10 months

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LORI LIEBERMAN COMMENTED ON MY COVER OF KILLING ME SOFTLY

depression LOST today weeeeee :3c

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sofiaflorina2021 · 7 months

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If you ever listened to "Killing Me Softly with His Song", the original song by Lori Lieberman that released in 1972 is the best, very calm and subtle.

#killing me softly with his song #lori lieberman #1970s #70s #1970s music #70s music #original song #original version #70s song #70s songs #1970s song #1970s songs

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maximumwobblerbanditdonut · 2 years

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Billie Eilish and Finneas, who won an Oscar in March for co-writing “No Time to Die” from the James Bond film of the same name, were invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences on Tuesday (June 28) They were among 12 people invited to join the music branch and among 397 people invited to join the Academy across all branches.

An invitation to join the Academy is generally a perk of winning an Oscar. Ariana DeBose, who won best supporting actress for West Side Story, and Troy Kotsur, who won best supporting actor for CODA, were invited to join the actors branch.

Other notables who were invited to join are Jamie Dornan, Kodi Smith-McPhee and Sheryl Lee Ralph (acting), and film critic Leonard Maltin and music supervisor Julia Michels (members at large).

Invitations to membership extended this year: short films and feature animation (41), documentary (38), sound (32), actors (30), producers (30), visual effects (28), executives (26), marketing and public relations (25), members at large (25), writers (22), directors (21), production design (16), makeup artists and hairstylists (13), film editors (12), music (12), costume designers (11), cinematographers (10) and casting directors (9).

Actors

Funke Akindele – “Omo Ghetto: The Saga,” “Jenifa”

Caitríona Balfe – “Belfast,” “Ford v Ferrari”

Reed Birney – “Mass,” “Changeling”

Jessie Buckley – “The Lost Daughter,” “I’m Thinking of Ending Things”

Lori Tan Chinn – “Turning Red,” “Glengarry Glen Ross”

Daniel K. Daniel – “The Fugitive,” “A Soldier’s Story”

Ariana DeBose – “West Side Story,” “The Prom”

Robin de Jesús – “tick, tick…BOOM!,” “The Boys in the Band”

Jamie Dornan – “Belfast,” “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar”

Michael Greyeyes – “Wild Indian,” “Woman Walks Ahead”

Gaby Hoffmann – “C’mon C’mon,” “Wild”

Amir Jadidi – “A Hero,” “Cold Sweat”

Kajol – “My Name Is Khan,” “Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham…”

Troy Kotsur – “CODA,” “The Number 23”

Vincent Lindon – “Titane,” “The Measure of a Man”

BarBara Luna – “The Concrete Jungle,” “Five Weeks in a Balloon”

Aïssa Maïga – “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” “Mood Indigo”

Selton Mello – “My Hindu Friend,” “Trash”

Olga Merediz – “In the Heights,” “Adrift”

Sandra Kwan Yue Ng – “Echoes of the Rainbow,” “Portland Street Blues”

Hidetoshi Nishijima – “Drive My Car,” “Cut”

Rena Owen – “The Last Witch Hunter,” “The Dead Lands”

Jesse Plemons – “The Power of the Dog,” “Judas and the Black Messiah”

Sheryl Lee Ralph – “Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit,” “The Distinguished Gentleman”

Renate Reinsve – “The Worst Person in the World,” “Welcome to Norway”

Marco Rodriguez – “El Chicano,” “Unspeakable”

Joanna Scanlan – “After Love,” “Notes on a Scandal”

Kodi Smit-McPhee – “The Power of the Dog,” “Let Me In”

Suriya – “Jai Bhim,” “Soorarai Pottru”

Anya Taylor-Joy – “The Northman,” “Last Night in Soho”

Music

Billie Eilish Baird O’Connell – “No Time to Die”

Amie Doherty – “Spirit Untamed,” “The High Note”

Lili Haydn – “Strip Down, Rise Up,” “Broken Kingdom”

Leo Heiblum – “Maria Full of Grace,” “Frida”

Natalie Holt – “Fever Dream,” “Journey’s End”

Nathan Johnson – “Nightmare Alley,” “Knives Out”

Jacobo Lieberman – “Maria Full of Grace,” “Frida”

Ariel Rose Marx – “Shiva Baby,” “Rebel Hearts”

Hesham Nazih – “The Guest,” “Born a King”

Finneas O’Connell – “No Time to Die”

Dan Romer – “Luca,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild”

Nerida Tyson-Chew – “H Is for Happiness,” “Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid”

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