Speaker 1: Welcome to five hundred Greatest Songs, a podcast based on
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones hugely popular, influential, and sometimes controversialist.
Speaker 2: I'm Britney Spanos and I'm Rob Sheffield.
Speaker 3: We're here to shed light on the greatest songs ever
Speaker 3: made and discover what makes them so great. This week,
Speaker 3: we're going into Killing Me Softly.
Speaker 1: This is the only song on the list that has
Speaker 1: two different versions that are on the list. The Roberta
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three version is at number two hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy three and the Fuji's nineteen ninety six version is
Speaker 1: at number three hundred and fifty nine. Both were Grammy
Speaker 1: winning number one hits, massive during their times of release
Speaker 1: and both ended up making the list.
Speaker 3: Amazing and two very emotional versions of a very emotional song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and obviously there's a lot of I feel like
Speaker 1: a lot of people always attribute to roberta Flax version
Speaker 1: being the first. I kind of wanted to get into
Speaker 1: the story behind the making of Killing Me Softly with
Speaker 1: his song, which is it?
Speaker 2: Like I was reading about it, I.
Speaker 1: Was like, this is so kind of crazy, going back
Speaker 1: to the original and sort of the controversy over the
Speaker 1: lyrics and the writing credits over the years, but the
Speaker 1: original version came out a year prior to A Bird
Speaker 1: of Flax, which was Lori Lieberman who was nineteen when
Speaker 1: she first wrote it. And she wrote it actually during
Speaker 1: a Don McLean concert and was watching him perform the
Speaker 1: ballad empty Chairs and was just like so moved by
Speaker 1: it that she started writing on her napkin during the show,
Speaker 1: this song that's basically about Don McLean singing this like
Speaker 1: heart wrenching ballad.
Speaker 3: It was like he found her letters and read each
Speaker 3: one out of loud. Lori Lieberman's version, like you said,
Speaker 3: that's a whole amazing story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's I mean that version is very very
Speaker 1: traditionally like soft rock. And it is crazy how many
Speaker 1: lives this song has lived, just even sonically, I mean,
Speaker 1: even by the standards of covers and how covers can
Speaker 1: have different lives. I mean, that's something that we've covered
Speaker 1: so much that we see constantly. It is so wild,
Speaker 1: how desparate each version of this song has been. Specifically
Speaker 1: these like three main you know, tent pole versions of
Speaker 1: killing Me Softly that existed.
Speaker 3: And Laurie Lieberman's version. How does it sound to you
Speaker 3: compared to the Roberta Flag version that became so massive.
Speaker 1: It's so much more understated and like subdued. Like Roberta's
Speaker 1: kind of has this like, I think, like Laurie's almost
Speaker 1: sounds closer to the Lauren Hill sort of vocal of
Speaker 1: like that sort of like like kind of desperation and sadness,
Speaker 1: and Roberta's feels like almost like a little bit there's
Speaker 1: this sort of like jazziness and like upbeatness. I guess
Speaker 1: just because she lifts the song a little bit more
Speaker 1: than Laurie's version, which is again just like much more
Speaker 1: like stripped down and very very classic like seventies soft
Speaker 1: rock version.
Speaker 3: Funny and so obscure. It's so funny that a song
Speaker 3: with two enormously famous versions and the one by the
Speaker 3: author the original is barely known at all. Yeah, it's comparable,
Speaker 3: I guess in that way too, Betty Davis, A is
Speaker 3: a song that you know, Jackie DeShannon recorded years before
Speaker 3: it was a hit. But nobody knows that Jackie desh
Speaker 3: in seventies soft rock version, Yeah, they know the eighties
Speaker 3: Kim Carnes synth version.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Very similar story with Killing Me Softly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean even Lori isn't credited on the
Speaker 1: both the ROBERTA. Flack and the Fuji's version. The original
Speaker 1: song was composed by Charles Fox, who was actually most notable,
Speaker 1: which I love learning this. He did a lot of
Speaker 1: the like Sunshine pop scores for TV shows in the seventies,
Speaker 1: like The Love Boat, and he did the original music
Speaker 1: for Monday Night Football.
Speaker 2: And she co wrote the.
Speaker 1: Lyrics with Norman Gamble, who was, you know, a songwriter
Speaker 1: at the time, and he was doing a lot of
Speaker 1: movie themes love Oscar Nominde movie themes. So it's the
Speaker 1: three of them that had worked on this song originally
Speaker 1: and worked on her first album and work sort of
Speaker 1: a songwriting trio together and had a big falling out.
Speaker 1: Norman and Laurie were dating for a minute while he
Speaker 1: was married. They like fell out by the end of
Speaker 1: the seventies and then by the nineties. The craziest part
Speaker 1: of it was that Norman and Charles ended up basically
Speaker 1: denying a story that they had been saying for years
Speaker 1: of the donal Clean origin of this, like the donal
Speaker 1: Clean concert, how Laurie was inspired by it and basically
Speaker 1: tried to erase her from the entire history of the
Speaker 1: song that wouldn't exist without her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very strange how this story turned. For the first
Speaker 3: twenty five years after ROBERTA. Flax's version became a hit,
Speaker 3: there was no dispute, no controversy about the origin story
Speaker 3: of Killing Me Softly. It was a very famous origin story.
Speaker 3: Everybody knew that the song had been written about Don
Speaker 3: McLean seeing him live, and everybody agreed on the story
Speaker 3: of how this song came to be. Yeah, and then
Speaker 3: in the nineties, legal disputes completely changed that, and yes,
Speaker 3: the story completely changed about the authorship of the song.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I want to make sure that we give our
Speaker 1: proper credit to Laurie Lieberman, who, of course, again this
Speaker 1: great song that has lived a million and one amazing lives,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure we'll have another several one hundred more
Speaker 1: in the future. And she's so much the origin of
Speaker 1: this and was essentially almost erased from the history of
Speaker 1: the song, and you know, has been in more recent
Speaker 1: years doing more interviews and talking about it and kind
Speaker 1: of reclaiming a lot of that legacy, which I think
Speaker 1: is great because she should obviously be given her proper
Speaker 1: due for writing this, Like brilliantly devastating and gorgeous song
Speaker 1: that has had you know, many beautiful covers again that
Speaker 1: exist on our list.
Speaker 3: Now, Yeah, it's hard to think of another song that
Speaker 3: famous with such a disputed origin story and that the
Speaker 3: different sides just do not agree. Closest thing I could
Speaker 3: think of is Wider Shade of Pale. But they both
Speaker 3: agree who did what, they argue over what constitutes songwriting.
Speaker 3: So even though the writers of Wider Shade of Pale
Speaker 3: have been in court for decades and will be for decades,
Speaker 3: there's still no dispute over who did what whereas this song,
Speaker 3: it's an argument that will never be settled.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And of course, the Laura Lieberman version that had
Speaker 1: come out, she released it as a single on her
Speaker 1: first album, and it was released into the world in
Speaker 1: its first version by her, and it was actually a
Speaker 1: Roberta flat hearing it while she was on an airplane
Speaker 1: for the first time where she heard the song in
Speaker 1: sort of like the in flight music, and that kind
Speaker 1: of spurred this like couple of years that she was
Speaker 1: really obsessed with this song and covering it and like
Speaker 1: really really wanting to record it and playing it and
Speaker 1: you know, just kind of being in love with this
Speaker 1: version that she had heard on a flight.
Speaker 3: ROBERTA. Flack was on such a role. She really created
Speaker 3: her own pop style with this super calm, super jazzy,
Speaker 3: but very understated soul that was very pop, very torchy,
Speaker 3: and she did it without any kind of historyonics. It's
Speaker 3: funny that in a song like killing Me Softly or
Speaker 3: any of her massive hits, really the first time ever
Speaker 3: I Saw Your Face is another great example where she
Speaker 3: takes this Celtic folk song by You and McCall and
Speaker 3: turns it into completely different song that's all her own,
Speaker 3: this real soul soliloquy yeah, and her seventy soul sound.
Speaker 3: There was nobody else who's sounded quite like it and
Speaker 3: had that smooth but super emotional tone, and she just
Speaker 3: really brought that home with killing Me Softly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the origin of her even recording it I loved,
Speaker 1: which was that she was touring with Quincy Jones at
Speaker 1: the time and came out for her encore and then
Speaker 1: she needed one more song, and she decided to sing
Speaker 1: the song that she had covered a few times before
Speaker 1: and had wanted to record and just didn't like the
Speaker 1: original kind of version of the recording that she had done,
Speaker 1: and Quincy was just like, you can't keep singing the
Speaker 1: song if you're just not gonna release it, And then
Speaker 1: she did and it became a number one hit. It
Speaker 1: was number one for five weeks. It wanted Grammy, it
Speaker 1: was you know, it was just like a massive moment
Speaker 1: for Roberta that you know has lived on in it
Speaker 1: in that form for many many generations and years. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just like her voice sounds incredible on it, and
Speaker 1: it's just like absolutely gorgeous and kind of just an
Speaker 1: instant classic.
Speaker 3: Really, it's her own distinctive sound. What are some of
Speaker 3: your favorites from her great seventies.
Speaker 1: Run Ooh, I mean I think like the first time
Speaker 1: I ever saw your face was like it's that's like
Speaker 1: a big one for me, Like, I love, love love
Speaker 1: that one.
Speaker 2: That's like a I love her voice on that one
Speaker 2: so much.
Speaker 4: It's amazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it builds as it repeats, Yeah, and she really
Speaker 3: underplays it in a really beautiful and emotional way. My
Speaker 3: favorite is with Donnie Hathaway, where is the Love?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: What a song? Love hearing those two voices together a
Speaker 3: real like archetypal seventies R and B duo.
Speaker 1: And isn't Donnie singing background too on Killing Me Softly?
Speaker 2: As well?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yes, their voices connect in so many amazing ways. Where's
Speaker 3: the Love is my sentimental favorite. Yeah, they both have
Speaker 3: the same question, where is the love? Neither of them knows.
Speaker 3: They keep asking each other through the song. As far
Speaker 3: as we know, this conversation has been going on for
Speaker 3: hours before they turned on the tape recorder and kept
Speaker 3: going for hours. But she had that super suave sort
Speaker 3: of sound. Yeah, that was perfect for a song like
Speaker 3: Killing Me Softly, which is very emotional and very uh,
Speaker 3: very confessional.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, even just like her version, especially
Speaker 1: comparing it to the original version, and just especially because
Speaker 1: they came out only only a couple of years in
Speaker 1: between each other. You know, Roberta is just kind of
Speaker 1: she makes it like a little bit, you know, a
Speaker 1: little bit faster of a song, and she adds sort
Speaker 1: of like all these kind of She's so classically trained,
Speaker 1: so you know, all these elements of both, you know,
Speaker 1: her her own kind of classical and jazz training as
Speaker 1: a musician kind of brought into this. But originally was
Speaker 1: just a very kind of standard classic soft rock moment
Speaker 1: and makes it this like impeccable R and B sound.
Speaker 2: It's just like really stunning.
Speaker 1: Yes, of course, two decades later the song sort of
Speaker 1: it has a couple of revivals. One there's like a
Speaker 1: like a club version of roberta Flax version that ends
Speaker 1: up sort of you know, having a bit of a
Speaker 1: moment in the mid nineties. And of course the Fujis recorded
Speaker 1: for the Score and this was their sophomore album, a big,
Speaker 1: big breakthrough for the band, and it is I mean
Speaker 1: just like again, a totally different story launches.
Speaker 2: With the Fuji's cover of Killing Me Softly.
Speaker 3: Which version were you into first?
Speaker 1: Fujis for sure, both like the Fujis and Lauren Hill
Speaker 1: as a solo artist. It was just like inescapable in
Speaker 1: the nineties, like that was just like something that not
Speaker 1: even just like hearing on the radio, like you were
Speaker 1: just like hearing constantly like out and about that was
Speaker 1: like music that very much soundtracked, you know, every summer
Speaker 1: and was just.
Speaker 2: Like hard to escape.
Speaker 1: So I feel like that song was one that I
Speaker 1: heard a lot and was the first time I'd ever
Speaker 1: heard that song, and then was very like surprised even
Speaker 1: to hear the Bird of Flack version I think probably
Speaker 1: later in high school college sometime sometime later, but was
Speaker 1: shocked to kind of hear this other version of the
Speaker 1: song that I just kind of assumed just belonged to
Speaker 1: Lauren Hill and her voice and had been hers for
Speaker 1: the entirety of its life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and such a departure for the fujis Yeah really
Speaker 3: wild that you know? The score was absolutely perfect album, Yeah,
Speaker 3: stacked from end to end and killing Me Softly sounded
Speaker 3: like nothing else on the album. It sounded more like
Speaker 3: what Lauren Hill ended up doing first, Yeah solo album, Miseducation,
Speaker 3: But you know, it's basically Lauren Hill's solo as an
Speaker 3: R and B singer, which is very different from what
Speaker 3: she's doing what the group is doing all through the
Speaker 3: rest of the album.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this the original idea for even covering the
Speaker 1: song came from Prase and the group. They were kind
Speaker 1: of inspired by a tribe called Quest and sort of
Speaker 1: the breakbeat production that tribe had become very known for,
Speaker 1: and so they wanted to do their own take on it,
Speaker 1: and they actually wanted to change the lyrics at first,
Speaker 1: and they wanted to make it sort of a song
Speaker 1: about like anti poverty, anti drugs, sort of you know,
Speaker 1: just like modernize the lyrics in some way. But we're
Speaker 1: denied by Charles and Norman, who sort of again were
Speaker 1: the only credited composer and songwriter for the song at
Speaker 1: the time, but they ended up doing sort of the
Speaker 1: straightforward lyrical cover of the song and really updating it
Speaker 1: making it sound super fresh. I mean, it still sounds
Speaker 1: super fresh, as you know, it's still sound it's like
Speaker 1: an extremely timeless kind of take on this once soft
Speaker 1: rock then sort of like jazzy soul song and then
Speaker 1: you know, now this kind of like break beat hip
Speaker 1: hop like moment from from nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's fantastic. It's funny that they don't really depart
Speaker 3: from the original arrangement much. You know, they don't add
Speaker 3: any any rapping, any interludes like that. Yeah, it's pretty
Speaker 3: much singing the song straight with, like you said, the
Speaker 3: original words. The main revision is the way she pronounces boy.
Speaker 2: And one time.
Speaker 3: Yes, one time is great. I mean there's a lot
Speaker 3: of inventive touches, the one time and the cinar, yeah,
Speaker 3: which is really kind of fantastic. It's gotta be my
Speaker 3: favorite nineties hip hop sitar moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do find myself when I'm listening to the ROBERTA.
Speaker 1: Flack version, like in my head adding the one time.
Speaker 3: It definitely sounds Yes, it always sounds a little off
Speaker 3: without the one Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's kind of you know how the song
Speaker 1: was always meant to be me and Donnie Hathaway in
Speaker 1: the back.
Speaker 3: To Yeah, you know, like White Cup should have been
Speaker 3: on stage with don McClain when you were singing, just
Speaker 3: going one time after each chorus. But it's well because
Speaker 3: that's really the only part of the song that is
Speaker 3: a detail that says, By the way, this singer is
Speaker 3: in a group and they're a hip hop.
Speaker 2: There are other members in this group. Don't forget they.
Speaker 3: Do not do covers of seventy soul songs as their
Speaker 3: main musical formula.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really love Lauren's vocal performance on the song,
Speaker 1: and like you said, like it does feel so much
Speaker 1: like this like launching of what we would hear from
Speaker 1: her as a solo artist. It feels so connected to
Speaker 1: not connected in a way where it feels like it
Speaker 1: should be a miseducation, but definitely feels like that, like
Speaker 1: step towards mis Education that we would get a few
Speaker 1: years later, but I mean she definitely leans even more
Speaker 1: into sort of that kind of like yearning element of it,
Speaker 1: and like she's really really deep and like you could
Speaker 1: really hear it in the way that she's singing this song,
Speaker 1: which again is like a big part of a lot
Speaker 1: of the songs on mis Education have so much of
Speaker 1: that kind of tone of yearning that she channels so
Speaker 1: well on this particular song.
Speaker 3: The fact that this song was, you know, a song
Speaker 3: that was a huge pop hit for the Fujis, who
Speaker 3: didn't really need a pop hit for a massive hit,
Speaker 3: the score was going to be a blockbuster album for them,
Speaker 3: even without killing me softly.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean Ready or Not Alone?
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolute family Business. Yeah, that's the killer on that album.
Speaker 3: I could never understand why that never became any kind
Speaker 3: of hit, never seemed to get enough airplay. But Family Business,
Speaker 3: that to me is like that is the Fuji song. Yeah,
Speaker 3: my favorite of favorites.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean again, this version becomes a number
Speaker 1: one hit when's the Grammy, It like ends up becoming
Speaker 1: sort of no in no way sort of even like
Speaker 1: on a different level than the Bird of black version,
Speaker 1: which again was such a monster of its own hit
Speaker 1: in its own time. And then we have another version
Speaker 1: that completely again like reinvents it, remakes it and like
Speaker 1: is in its own way in the mid nineties subdly
Speaker 1: this number one Grammy winning hit.
Speaker 2: At that time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and a hit that never goes away. Yeah, It's
Speaker 3: always everywhere, it always fits in, it never sounds stated.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Are there other songs like that where they have sort
Speaker 1: of like that kind of first number one sort of run.
Speaker 1: I guess like that occurred and then kind of comes
Speaker 1: back as a cover version that ends up being successful.
Speaker 3: Example comes to mind is Always on My Mind by
Speaker 3: the Pet Shop Boys, Yeah, which was huge hit for Elvis,
Speaker 3: just as a sort of you know, vagacy ballad.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then a much bigger hit, the Country version by
Speaker 3: Willie Nelson, which seemed like it was always going to
Speaker 3: be a definite version. And then this totally crazy, hyper
Speaker 3: high energy eighties pop disco version by the Pet Shop Boys,
Speaker 3: And I love how strange it is that it is
Speaker 3: the same song. They're not messing with the arrangement. It's
Speaker 3: like killing me softly. But every version has such a
Speaker 3: different mood and without changing anything. Fundamental or structural about
Speaker 3: the song. They just make it feel completely different. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So I don't even think of that as a cover.
Speaker 3: They're just like different hit versions.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess it also reminded me because we had
Speaker 1: talked about this song very recently, was the first cut
Speaker 1: of The Deepest as like another sort of like having
Speaker 1: sort of like the Cat Stevens than Rod Stewart than
Speaker 1: Cheryl Crowe versions kind of existed and being so faithful to,
Speaker 1: you know, the original and like what the original song
Speaker 1: sounds like, but finding kind of their own pockets of
Speaker 1: what that song could be or kind of pulling out
Speaker 1: different emotions.
Speaker 2: From the lyrics.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah, it's wild when that happens, and when
Speaker 3: a song can have another life for two different singers
Speaker 3: where it's not a one shot in either career. And
Speaker 3: with Killing Me Softly, Lauren Hill was already a star
Speaker 3: on the hip hop level, already about to break out.
Speaker 3: The Fuji's were absolutely going to break out with pop
Speaker 3: with this. Withbird of Flack, it was one hit among
Speaker 3: many for her. Yeah, it's funny that it's a song
Speaker 3: that is so distinctive in both their catalogs. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: definitely a song that is part of their story. Yeah,
Speaker 3: a long story.
Speaker 1: Yeah, added to so much of their stories, and not
Speaker 1: even just like built the story, but kind of like
Speaker 1: added like a new chapter to already who they were
Speaker 1: or who.
Speaker 2: They were becoming at those times.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you have a favorite sort of other fujis or
Speaker 1: Lauren Hill vocal moment or song?
Speaker 3: It's well because for her soul vocals, I mean, she
Speaker 3: has such a distinctive voice, whether she's rapping or singing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and there's really nothing else like it. And that was
Speaker 3: always wild with Killing Me Softly, such a familiar song
Speaker 3: that she puts such an original twist on without changing melody,
Speaker 3: without changing the words, just because the tone of her voice,
Speaker 3: like you said, so yearning. I love when she raps
Speaker 3: and does that in her voice. Her vocal on Lost Ones, Yeah,
Speaker 3: is just such a phenomenal vocal. She's rapping, not singing,
Speaker 3: but that same kind of yearning is in it, even
Speaker 3: though she's talking very tough. It's not a yearning lyric,
Speaker 3: but you can hear that yearning in her voice in
Speaker 3: that song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm always partial to the yearning song. So I'm
Speaker 1: a big fan of X Factor by her, which again
Speaker 1: similar kind of those similar like family of you know,
Speaker 1: vocal performances from her that that Killing Me Softly.
Speaker 2: Kind of has.
Speaker 1: But I just I think that that is just one
Speaker 1: of her her best office another one that you know,
Speaker 1: even in sample form, has had many, many different lives
Speaker 1: and covers. You know, ifyonce has covered a hit, drake
Speaker 1: A sampled it like it's you know, has sort of
Speaker 1: these different kind of resurgences over I mean, I guess,
Speaker 1: especially in the last ten years of existing, it is amazing.
Speaker 3: Miseducation of Learn Hill has to be one of the
Speaker 3: most front loaded albums of all time. Weld also that
Speaker 3: the Fuji's version very anomalous for a hip hop group
Speaker 3: in the nineties, very serious hip hop group with a
Speaker 3: lot of underground ties. A hit like this didn't affect
Speaker 3: their credibility in any way. Yeah, they didn't complain about
Speaker 3: it the way you know that an artist is going
Speaker 3: to often complain about their pop breakthrough hit. This just
Speaker 3: really seemed to fit every audience. It really seemed to connect,
Speaker 3: is the real thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you say which one you liked the more,
Speaker 1: ROBERTA Flack or the Fujis.
Speaker 3: Now I was avoiding the question because it's so painful,
Speaker 3: the push come to shove, The Lauren Hill version, the
Speaker 3: Fuji's version, Yeah, that's the one that's when I think
Speaker 3: of the song. I think of that version yearning in
Speaker 3: her voice. She is so yearning. ROBERTA. Flack is so calm.
Speaker 3: They're both so powerful in that. And yet the Lauren
Speaker 3: Hill version with again that one time, which really is
Speaker 3: a canonical part of the song for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And what are some other versions that you've heard
Speaker 1: over the years are really like, Like, I recently heard Jenny
Speaker 1: from Black Pink cover it and I loved her take
Speaker 1: on the song as well.
Speaker 3: It's so good. It's such an odd pick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that that was such a great version.
Speaker 1: It becomes such a standard for a lot of singers
Speaker 1: to go to this song because it is such a
Speaker 1: great vocal song. And you know, I feel like American Idol,
Speaker 1: and you know, a lot of singing competitions, a lot
Speaker 1: of singers gravitate towards it.
Speaker 3: It's just amazing a song that is so powerful about
Speaker 3: the act of listening to music.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Next, we'll be joined by Rolling Stone senior writer David Brown.
Speaker 1: We are joining now by Rolling Stone senior writer David Brown.
Speaker 2: David, thank you so much.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me here. Glad to be thank David.
Speaker 4: Thanks Robing Brittany.
Speaker 1: I mean, we both answered the very difficult choice of
Speaker 1: which version of Killing Me.
Speaker 2: Softly is your favorite? So I want to know your
Speaker 2: your answer.
Speaker 5: My favorite is still the ROBERTA. Flack original. It's probably
Speaker 5: because it's the first one I heard. Just maybe not
Speaker 5: the case with some people, but I remember, I mean
Speaker 5: I loved it at the time, even though it was
Speaker 5: like this little kid and you know, quote unquote soft
Speaker 5: rock type songs didn't work usually my thing. Most of
Speaker 5: us didn't know the backstory behind any of it. It
Speaker 5: was just this like beautiful flowing song on the radio.
Speaker 5: That wordless part she sings in it is just transcendent.
Speaker 5: It just like brings it up to another level. You
Speaker 5: weren't sure which exactly she was singing about. But yeah,
Speaker 5: that's the one I still listened to, even though the Fuji's.
Speaker 4: Is great, but you know, just the early one was
Speaker 4: the one that connected with me.
Speaker 1: And when did you hear the original version, the Lori
Speaker 1: Liberman version.
Speaker 4: Oh, probably not till many years later.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that record, which which was the first version of
Speaker 5: it of that song, you know, kind of came and went.
Speaker 5: It wasn't a hit or anything. And so even back
Speaker 5: then and back in the day, Lorid Liberman was a
Speaker 5: cult figure at best. You know, you just never heard
Speaker 5: her songs at all on the radio. You might see
Speaker 5: the records in the record store, but like, oh, who's
Speaker 5: that you know or another singer songwriter. So it wasn't
Speaker 5: until many years later, when you know, YouTube or whatever
Speaker 5: where things were more accessible. I heard it and I
Speaker 5: was like, oh, wow, like this is you can see
Speaker 5: how reverta Flak re arranged it, but the essence of
Speaker 5: the song is kind of all there. I thought it
Speaker 5: was really fascinating. And then, of course we all many
Speaker 5: years as the years went on, we all learned the
Speaker 5: whole backstory with Lourie Lieberman, which is a whole other
Speaker 5: fascinating thing that, like I said, we didn't know at
Speaker 5: the time.
Speaker 4: It came out later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you sort of remember kind of like
Speaker 1: how that exploded, especially in the late nineties with with
Speaker 1: Lori and the other songwriters.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I vaguely remember reading an interview with
Speaker 5: her with Lori Liberman sometime in the late nineties.
Speaker 4: I think it was after the Fuji's version.
Speaker 5: So I think by then we all knew it was
Speaker 5: about Don McClain, but you know, her going into more
Speaker 5: detail about her relationship with gimbal and Fox. And then
Speaker 5: around the same time, Charles Fox, who Don McLean or
Speaker 5: threatened to sue Don mcclin for putting on his website
Speaker 5: that he was the inspiration for that song. That's when
Speaker 5: I really all started coming out, I think, And.
Speaker 2: Can you tell us little bit more about the lawsuit
Speaker 2: that happened with Don.
Speaker 4: I think it was just a threat.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And again I think it was again after the
Speaker 5: Fujis and he put something on his website that he
Speaker 5: was the inspiration for the song, and it's actually still
Speaker 5: there to some extent on his site. I just checked
Speaker 5: it today. He has a little chronological kind of timeline
Speaker 5: and there's a photo of him with Lori Liberman ten
Speaker 5: twenty years ago hanging out. I think the songwriters at
Speaker 5: the time, we're trying to rewrite history a bit and
Speaker 5: kind of write out the fact that he inspired Lorie Lieberman,
Speaker 5: which would then sort of write her out of the
Speaker 5: story because she had sort of given an interview dissing them.
Speaker 5: So it seemed like it was maybe their way of
Speaker 5: trying to get back at him by having Don McLean
Speaker 5: take the thing off his website, and so they threatened.
Speaker 5: One of them threatened the lawsuit, and Don McLean pulled
Speaker 5: out this article from the Daily News from nineteen seventy
Speaker 5: three in which Lord Lieberman has asked, oh, you know
Speaker 5: who's this about, and she says Don McLean, I saw
Speaker 5: him at the Troubert in Los Angeles last year, blah
Speaker 5: blah blah, and then I think the whole thing just
Speaker 5: kind of went away. But you know, I was fascinated
Speaker 5: with the I guess what we'd call the umbrella term
Speaker 5: of soft rock, which would be like singer songwriters and
Speaker 5: yacht rock, because the more you dig into some of
Speaker 5: this stuff, you realize that sometimes neither the singers nor
Speaker 5: the songs, or that laid back and mellow and it's like, oh,
Speaker 5: that troubadour who was nice not to be a heroin
Speaker 5: at or some complete neuronic mess, or you know, you're
Speaker 5: listening to a yacht rock song like Ride like the
Speaker 5: Wind and it's like it's moving along vialuce you read
Speaker 5: the lyrics, Oh, it's kind of like a gangster thing
Speaker 5: about a guy within the run with the gun and
Speaker 5: the crime the Steel. There's steely dance songs. Of course,
Speaker 5: they're about drug dealers and stuff. A soft rock is
Speaker 5: always so soft and mellow and and so there's something
Speaker 5: about this whole saga of killing me softly that is
Speaker 5: part of that tradition of like, oh, it's a really
Speaker 5: pretty song, and it is. It's a beautiful song, and
Speaker 5: then you learn more about it and you're like, oh, boy,
Speaker 5: that is one tangled, often twisted teal.
Speaker 4: And you guys probably discuss the Fuji's version.
Speaker 5: I imagine, like how they wanted to rewrite it and
Speaker 5: all that, and that was another you know, past thing
Speaker 5: twist and they weren't allowed to change the lyrics. It's
Speaker 5: a song that seems so kind of a gorgeous pop
Speaker 5: song that has this fraud history in the great tradition
Speaker 5: of the dark side of soft. I should do of
Speaker 5: Spotify playlist. You know what's also so interesting about this
Speaker 5: song is I went back and listened to so many
Speaker 5: of the covers and there's a whole slew of them.
Speaker 5: Nancy Sinatra and Johnny Mathis and Perry Como, Anne Murray
Speaker 5: Bastile just did it like right like last year and
Speaker 5: plugged thing, and nobody messes with it. I mean the
Speaker 5: Fuji's had to be you know, they arrange slightly, but
Speaker 5: it's a song that people are very reverent about really,
Speaker 5: like you know, there's no kitschy ironic covers that I've
Speaker 5: come across. Maybe you guys have, but it seems like
Speaker 5: every version of it is very faithful, adheres to the
Speaker 5: kind of arrangement and the spirit of it. You know,
Speaker 5: even if people change his song to her song. In
Speaker 5: some cases, that's about the biggest tweak, and I think
Speaker 5: it shows how that song has not just endured in
Speaker 5: the culture, but it's I don't want to call it sacred,
Speaker 5: that's too much, but I mean it's it's something that
Speaker 5: is a very meaningful song to lots of people, all
Speaker 5: about Don McLean, So go figure.
Speaker 3: His second biggest impact.
Speaker 5: And isn't it funny too? That was inspired but not
Speaker 5: just seeing him, but not by American Pie, but like
Speaker 5: a deep cut on the American Pie album called Empty Chairs,
Speaker 5: which is like and that was one of the first
Speaker 5: albums in my record collection. I have to say American Pie,
Speaker 5: so I know that song.
Speaker 3: Well, the Don McLean song American pie that we all
Speaker 3: know inspired by Buddy Holly, and that this thing of
Speaker 3: songs about listening to songs.
Speaker 5: Yeah, songs, yes, yes, which I guess is part of
Speaker 5: the backstory. And gimbal and Fox had some idea right
Speaker 5: of like, oh, let's let's write a song about how
Speaker 5: music can inspire you, and she was like, oh wait. Loyally,
Speaker 5: by coincidence, I saw Don McLean and.
Speaker 1: To the point of like the reverence to the original,
Speaker 1: it is so fascinating with the fuji's wanting to change it,
Speaker 1: they still create something that is that feels like such
Speaker 1: a continuation of the story and of the song and
Speaker 1: how it had been in previous incarnations. But do you
Speaker 1: have any kind of thoughts on why people have sort
Speaker 1: of in later years and more recently still kind of
Speaker 1: maintained that and sort of maintained that idea of the
Speaker 1: song in its purest form when they cover it.
Speaker 5: I think the fact that it's even taking Don McLean
Speaker 5: out of it and whatever's feeling once feelings are about
Speaker 5: Don McClain.
Speaker 4: I think this.
Speaker 5: Idea of seeing a performer hearing a song and having
Speaker 5: it so affect you and move you is a universal
Speaker 5: enduring the sentiment, you know, and I think that sort
Speaker 5: of transcends generations and genres. I think that must be
Speaker 5: an aspect of it. It's kind of a standard. I mean,
Speaker 5: it's an interesting structure. It has a verse chorus structure,
Speaker 5: but it plays around with that a little bit. I mean,
Speaker 5: I was thought that it was so striking to people
Speaker 5: when the Fuji's version came out, because there wasn't anything
Speaker 5: quite like that at the time on the radio.
Speaker 3: It's funny that her romantic songs like were the ones
Speaker 3: that didn't necessarily capture that quality in her voice quite
Speaker 3: as much as this one did.
Speaker 4: Interesting, that's a good point.
Speaker 3: The first time I ever saw your face, that's you know,
Speaker 3: Brittany was talking about that. That's her favorite ROBERTA Flex.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 5: What's fascinating is that I grew to love that song
Speaker 5: when I got older, and you look back and like
Speaker 5: the fact that that song was like a big pop hit.
Speaker 4: You know, it was in a movie and that helped.
Speaker 5: But I mean it's so like subdude and slow and
Speaker 5: like you know, it's it's got all the space in it,
Speaker 5: and it's it's kind of remarkable that that was like
Speaker 5: a top ten or whatever hit at the time.
Speaker 4: It's kind of a miracle.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so repetitive verse for there's no chorus, there's
Speaker 3: no bridge. It structured like a folk song way.
Speaker 5: It's just this slow, simmery thing all the way through it.
Speaker 5: And it was like I said, it didn't hit me
Speaker 5: at first, but I mean it when it did, it
Speaker 5: was like, Wow, this is really hypnotic, and you really
Speaker 5: just sit down and listen to that thing over.
Speaker 4: And over again. And the other thing.
Speaker 5: Maybe you guys already talked to all those other songs
Speaker 5: that gimbal and Fox wrote, like TV theme song, like
Speaker 5: Happy Days, wonder Woman, Vernon Shirley. It's like those guys
Speaker 5: wrote killing Me Softly.
Speaker 3: It's one of bey On killing Me Softly. Their second
Speaker 3: most famous lyric is love Exciting and new Come be
Speaker 3: Expecting You, and.
Speaker 4: The other one wonder Woman. Yeah, that's another catchy lyric
Speaker 4: of this.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I Got a Name by Jim Croch, which
Speaker 5: is actually a great song too.
Speaker 3: That's one of my favorite Jim Croch songs. It blew
Speaker 3: my mind that that was their song and not Jim Crochy's,
Speaker 3: which is a compliment to their songwriting.
Speaker 4: Right right, as well as to him.
Speaker 5: They were real chameleons. I mean, I'll say that about them,
Speaker 5: and they could just adapt to whatever. You gotta write
Speaker 5: a TV theme, Oh good, you gotta write a kind
Speaker 5: of singer songwriter song. Okay, we'll do that gimbal translated,
Speaker 5: you know, golf Medpanima lyrics. I mean, it was just
Speaker 5: like these were kind of old school record business guys
Speaker 5: who are like, you do what you to do and
Speaker 5: you adapt to your times. It's kind of a rarity
Speaker 5: now think in the business and people to do that.
Speaker 3: It was the Tim Panlly sort of tradition where you know,
Speaker 3: like absolutely gets done.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, there's work to do, and you do the work
Speaker 4: and you don't worry if it's cool or not.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, David, Thank you.
Speaker 4: Thanks guys. Is always a blast, real joy talking to always.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to Rolling Stones five hundred
Speaker 1: Greatest Songs. This podcast is brought to you by Rolling
Speaker 1: Stone and iHeartMedia. Written hosted by me Britney Spanis and
Speaker 1: Rob Sheffield. Executive produced by Gus Winner, Jason Fine, Alex Dale,
Speaker 1: and Christian Horde, and produced by Jesse Cannon, with music
Speaker 1: supervision by Eric Seiler.