Idina Menzel “Let It Go” released

Let It Go Idina Menzel

Writer(s): Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez (see lyrics here) Released: November 25, 2013 First Charted: December 4, 2013 Peak: 5 US, 47 RR, 9 AC, 20 A40, 11 UK, 18 CN, 16 AU, 8 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 9.0 US, 2.4 UK, 14.38 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 4889.02 video, 665.92 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: The Disney animated movie Frozen earned more than a billion dollars on its way to becoming not just the highest-grossing film of 2013, but (at least for a time) the highest-grossing animated film of all time. The soundtrack also did astonishing well, spending thirteen weeks atop the Billboard album chart and selling four million copies. Idina Menzel provided the voice of the character Queen Elsa in the movie and sang “Let It Go,” which became the film’s inescapable hit. The husband-and-wife songwriting team of Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez wrote the song with her in mind, calling her “one of the most glorious voices of Broadway and an icon in musical theater.” WK In terms of the context of the song, they wanted a song that presented Elsa as someone coming to terms with her gift instead of as a villain. In the movie, Elsa sings the song after she loses control of her ability to generate ice. She rejoices that her secret is now out and she can use her power freely and shed the expectations others have of her as a queen. WK Menzel described the song, saying, “It’s about finding that thing that makes you different that’s going to make you special and extraordinary.” SF While Menzel was a Tony-winning Broadway actress, she wasn’t a known entity in the world of pop music. The plan had been to release a pop version of the song by Demi Lovato (as performed over the film’s closing credits). However, it was Mendel’s version which took off and became what The Boston Globe’s Yvonne Abraham called “musical crack” which “sends kids into altered states.” WK Menzel became the first Tony winner to reach the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the first Disney song in nearly two decades to reach the top ten. The last time had been Vanessa Williams with “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas in 1995. The song won the Oscar for Best Song as well as a Grammy for Best Song Written for Visual Media. The song made writer Robert Lopez a member of the exclusive EGOT club for people who had won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Idina Menzel SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 8/16/2023.

 

Adele “Skyfall” released

Skyfall Adele

Writer(s): Adele Adkins, Paul Epworth (see lyrics here) Released: October 5, 2012 First Charted: October 7, 2012 Peak: 8 US, 11 AC, 14 A40, 3 AA, 2 UK, 3 CN, 5 AU, 7 DF (Click for codes to charts.) Sales (in millions): 2.0 US, 1.3 UK, 7.2 world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 537.5 video, 489.16 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Singer/songwriter Adele Adkins was born in 1988 in London, England. She released her debut album, 19, in 2008. It was a huge success in her home country, reaching #1 and selling more than two million copies. It also got to #4 in the United States and sold three million copies. She also won a Grammy for Best New Artist. Her next album, 2011’s 21, made her a superstar. It spent 24 weeks at #1 on the Billboard album chart and sold more than 31 million copies worldwide. Three songs from the album went to #1 in the United States. It also won the Grammy for Album of the Year. It was hard to imagine how she would follow it. In 2011, Lia Vollack, the Sony Pictures President of Music, approached Adele about recording a theme song for the next James Bond movie, Skyfall. he thought her music had a “soulful, haunting, evocative quality” WK that would evoke the “classic Shirley Bassey feel” of early Bond films. WK Adele read the script and then she and co-writer Paul Epworth “aimed to capture the mood and style of the other Bond themes, including dark and moody lyrics descriptive of the film’s plot.” WK She said “it was one of the proudest moments of my life…I’ll be…60 telling people I was a Bond girl back in the day.” SF Daniel Craig, who played James Bond, said he cried when he first heard the song. “From the opening bars I knew immediately, then the voice kicked in and it was exactly what I'd wanted from the beginning. It just got better and better because it fitted the movie. In fact the more of the movie we made, the more it fitted it.” SF The song premiered at 0:07 BST on October 5, 2012 – Global James Bond Day – in elebration of the 50th anniversary of Dr. No, the first James Bond film. WK In a Dave’s Music Database ranking of the Bond themes, “Skyfall” came in at #2 (only behind “Live and Let Die” by Paul McCartney & Wings). It topped the charts in 15 countries and won the Oscar for Best Song as well as a Grammy for Best Song Written for Visual Media. It also took home the Brit Award for British single, the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, and the Critics’ Choice Movie Award for Best Song. Resources: Dave’s Music Database (10/5/2022). “James Bond Movie Themes Ranked” SF Songfacts WK Wikipedia Related Links: First posted 1/18/2023.

50 years ago: “Moon River” hit the chart

Moon River Henry Mancini with Audrey Hepburn

Writer(s): Henry Mancini (music)/ Johnny Mercer (lyrics) (see lyrics here) First Charted: October 7, 1961 Peak: 11 US, 5 CB, 7 HR, 11 AC, 44 UK, 14 CN, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): -- US, -- UK, -- world (includes US + UK) Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 34.3 video, 76.11 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: This song, written for the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s, ranks #4 on the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest movie songs. The movie, directed by Blake Edwards, was an adaptation of Truman Capote’s book Holly Golightly. Henry Mancini, hot off his success composing for TV’s Peter Gunn, was tapped to write the score. When he needed, as his wife Virginia said, a “haunting song that would depict Holly Golightly as a little girl from a small town who is trying to be very sophisticated in big, bad New York City,” SS he turned to Johnny Mercer, one of his songwriting idols. Like the movie’s main character, Mercer left his home in the south for “the glittering lights of a sophisticated New York.” TC He was “firmly established as one of the great American composers” TC and co-founded Capitol Records in 1942, but hadn’t had a hit in years. SS The result was a song which “neatly pivots on nostalgia for a lost youth and the romance of the future.” TC It “was both a little folksly and a little elegant.” JV The song won Grammys for Record and Song of the Year. Over the years, three different artists took it to #1 on three different charts. The original topped the adult contemporary chart, Jerry Butler took it to #1 in New Zealand, and Danny Williams reached the pinnacle on the UK chart. WK Louis Armstrong, Judy Garland, Morrissey, R.E.M., Frank Sinatra, Rod Stewart, Barbra Streisand, and Sarah Vaughan have also recorded the song. WK Mancini drew his musical inspiration from the script and Audrey Hepburn, the film’s star TC and “the reigning queen of Hollywood.” SS He said her “big eyes gave me the push to get a little more sentimental than I usually do.” TC After seeing the movie with Mancini’s score, Hepburn wrote him a letter, saying, “A movie without music is a little bit like an aeroplane without fuel. However beautifully the job is done, we are still on the ground and in a world of reality. Your music has lifted us all up and sent us soaring.” TC Resources: DMDB Encyclopedia entry for Henry Mancini TC Toby Creswell (2005). 1001 Songs: The Great Songs of All Time. Thunder’s Mouth Press: New York, NY. Page 667. JV David Jenness and Don Velsey (2006). Classic American Popular Song. Routledge: New York, NY. Page 196. SS Steve Sullivan (2013). Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings (Volumes I & II). Scarecrow Press: Lanham, Maryland. Pages 475-6. WK Wikipedia First posted 4/10/2020; last updated 10/22/2022.

“Falling Slowly” released...for first time

Falling Slowly The Swell Season (Glen Hansard & Markéta Irglová)

Writer(s): Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová (see lyrics here) Released: April 21, 2006 First Charted: September 16, 2007 Peak: 61 US, 15 AA, 8 CN, 1 DF (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 0.99 US Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 17.3 video, 101.35 streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: Glen Hansard is a folk-rock singer/songwriter and musician born in Dublin, Ireland in 1970. He became the frontman of the rock band the Frames in 1990; they have released six studio albums. In 2001, he met a then-thirteen-year-old Markéta Irglová, a singer and pianist born in Czechoslavokia. Her parents organized a musical festival and booked the Frames. Hansard and Irglová formed a folk-rock duo known as the Swell Season. Hansard took the name from a 1975 novel by Czech-Canadian writer Josef Škvorecký. The pair released a self-titled album in 2006 which featured the song “Falling Slowly.” Hansard also released it that same year on the Frames’ album, The Cost. It also appeared in the 2006 Czech movie Beauty in Trouble. The song, however, was written and composed while the movie Once was in production WK1 and would appear on the movie’s 2007 soundtrack. Hansard and Irglová starred as struggling musicians in the romantic musical drama written and directed by John Carney. He was a bassist with the Frames in the early ‘90s and approached Hansard about writing songs for the movie. SF It was a surprise hit, receiving the Independent Spirt Award for Best Foreign Film. It was developed into a musical in 2011 and won the Tony Award for Best Musical. Carney thought the success was due in part to the chemistry between the actors, who he called his “Bogart and Bacall.” WK1 They did become a couple in real life. Hansard acknowledged, “I had been falling in love with her for a long time, but I kept telling myself she’s just a kid.” WK1 The song “Falling Slowly” won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and was nominated for an Oscar for Best Song Written for Motion Picture, Television, or Other Visual Media. During the acceptance speech at the Oscars, Irglová said, that “Falling Slowly” “was written from a perspective of hope, and hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different we are.” WK2 Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Glen Hansard SF Songfacts WK1 Wikipedia page for Once WK Wikipedia page for “Falling Slowly” First posted 9/22/2022.

50 years ago: Doris Day hit #1 with “Secret Love”

Secret Love Doris Day

Writer(s): Sammy Fain (music), Paul Francis Webster (lyrics) (see lyrics here) Released: October 9, 1953 First Charted: November 28, 1953 Peak: 14 US, 17 HP, 15 CB, 11 UK (Click for codes to singles charts.) Sales (in millions): 1.0 US Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 6.6 video, -- streaming

Awards: Click on award for more details.

About the Song: “The careers of Sammy Fain and Paul Francis Webster were inextricabily linked to the old aristocracy of Tin Pan Alley” LW and “Secret Love” “was one of the last gasps for the old craftsmen of Tin Pan Alley” LW as pop music gave way to rock ‘n’ roll. “Power was ebbing away from the artists and writers towards the record companies.” LW The song was featured in the film Calamity Jane, “the story of an accient prone, rough and ready cowgirl of the old Wild West.” LW The movie starred Doris Day in the title role, falling in love – secretly – with Wild Bill Hickok. It won the Oscar for Best Song. Fain brought the song to Day’s house and played it for her. WK She said “I almost fainted. It was so beautiful.” LW On the day of the recording session, the musical director, Ray Heindorf, suggested a practice run-through with the orchestra prior to recording any takes. However, she asked that they record the first performance after which Heindorf said, “That’s it.” It was the only take they did. WK The song charted multiple times, including versions by Tommy Edwards (#28 US, 1954), Ray Anthony (#29 US, 1954), Slim Whitman (#2 CW, 1954), Kathy Kirby (#4 UK, 1963), Billy Stewart (#11 RB, 1966), Richard “Groove” Holmes (#27 AC, 1966), Tony Booth (#47 CW, 1973), and Freddy Fender (#1 CW, 1975). Others who recorded the song included Count Basie, Bing Crosby, Connie Francis, Spike Jones, Loretta Lynn, George Michael, the Moonglows, Sinéad O'Connor, the Orioles, Frank Sinatra. WK Bigs Bunny even sang “Secret Love” in the 1966 animated featurette “Rabbitson Crusoe.” WK Resources: DMDB encyclopedia entry for Doris Day LW Alan Lewens (2001). Popular Song – Soundtrack of the Century. Billboard Books: New York, NY. Page 103. WK Wikipedia First posted 11/25/2022.