Roberta Flack had a number one song with “Killing Me Softly with His Song” in 1973. Two decades later, The Fugees brought the song to a new generation when they covered it on the album The Score (1996) with lead vocals by Lauryn Hill. A song being recorded two decades apart is not that unusual, but there are some other interesting aspects about the origins of “Killing Me Softly with His Song.”
One relatively unique feature of “Killing Me Softly with His Song” is that it is a song about a song. But that underlying song is unnamed as the singer recounts hearing another singer that deeply affects her.
Another unique aspect of “Killing Me Softly with His Song” is that the story is somewhat true. It reportedly was inspired by another song by singer-songwriter Don McLean. But before we get to McLean’s song, below is Roberta Flack’s hit version of “Killing Me Softly with His Song.”
Songwriter Lori Lieberman
Although there is some debate about the origins of “Killing Me Softly with His Song,” the song was written by Charles Fox with lyrics by Norman Gimbel. Most agree, though, that Gimbel collaborated in some way with Lori Lieberman in writing the lyrics.
Lieberman maintains that many of the lyrics were inspired by her reaction to hearing Don McLean perform one of his songs. In “Killing Me Softly,” the singer recounts an unnamed man singing a revealing song: “I felt all flushed with fever / Embarrassed by the crowd / I felt he had found my letters / And read each one out loud.”
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 recorded “Killing Me Softly with His Song” in 1971. Subsequently, Roberta Flack heard Lieberman’s recording while flying between New York and Los Angeles. When Flack heard the song, she was so moved that she immediately wanted to record it herself.
Below, Lieberman performs “Killing Me Softly” on The Mike Douglas Show in 1973.
Don McLean’s “Empty Chairs”
What was the song that a singer sang as if knew the listener “in all my dark despair”? As Lieberman explains in the above video starting at around the 3:30 mark while actor Tony Curtis holds her guitar, “Killing Me Softly with His Song” was inspired by her reaction to hearing Don McLean’s song, “Empty Chairs.”
Lieberman first heard McLean singing “Empty Chairs” at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, and it affected her deeply. McClean’s song is about a person remembering a lover who left the singer alone.
And I wonder if you know,
That I never understood
That although you said you’d go,
Until you did, I never thought you would
Here is Don McLean performing “Empty Chairs.”
Lieberman states that after attending a Don McLean concert, she discussed her feelings in response to the singer’s performance of “Empty Chairs.” She explained, ” I felt exposed – as though he were singing about me and my life.”
According to Lieberman, she then wrote a poem about her feelings and shared it with songwriter Norman Gimbel, who worked it into a song by making a variation on a title he already had, “Killing Me Softly with the Blues.” Gimbel and Lieberman discussed more about Lieberman’s experience and the lyrics. Then, Gimbel went to the home of Charles Fox, who worked on the music for the song.
On Don McLean’s website, the man most famous for songs like “American Pie” and “Vincent” features a 1973 Daily News article about his connection to “Killing Me Softly with His Song.” McLean is quoted about being “amazed” and “humbled” when he learned that he had inspired “Killing Me Softly with his Song.”
Other Variations On the Story
One of the writers of “Killing Me Softly with His Song,” however, recalls the story behind the song a little differently. Charles Fox, who also wrote a large number of popular TV theme songs with Norman Gimbel, explains that he and Norman Gimbel wrote “Killing Me Softly with His Song” for Lori Lieberman.
Gimbel had a book of possible song titles, and one was “Killing Me Softly with the Blues.” Gimbel reportedly had seen the phrase in Julio Cortázar’s novel Hopscotch.
Fox liked the first part of the suggested title, but then they came up with “Killing Me Softly with His Song” as a better title. From there, Norman came up with the rest of the lyrics and Fox provided the music.
When Fox and Gimbel played the song for Lieberman, according to Fox, Lieberman responded that the words reminded her of a Don McLean concert. Thus, according to Fox, the Don McLean connection came after the song was written.
Gimbel’s version of the creation of the song seems somewhere in the middle between Fox and Lieberman. While like Fox he has downplayed Lieberman’s role, in an April 5, 1973 Daily News story, Gimbel recalled that Lieberman told him about the experience she had at a Don McLean concert. He explained, “I had a notion this might make a good song so the three of us discussed it. We talked it over several times, just as we did with the rest of the numbers we wrote for the album and we all felt it had possibilities.”
The Impact of “Killing Me Softly with His Song”
No matter how “Killing Me Softly with His Song” was created, that song touched many listeners. While McLean’s song “Empty Chairs” deeply affected Lieberman, it was the later song “Killing Me Softly with His Song” that resonated with a larger audience.
Lieberman, who apparently was feeling heartbreak when she first heard McLean’s song, helped create a mysterious song indirectly about heartbreak that focused instead on her reaction to the power of music. And that mystery behind her song resonates with listeners today as it did in the 1970s and 1990s.
In 1973, “Killing Me Softly with His Song” won Record of the Year and Song of the Year at the Grammy Awards, where Roberta Flack also won Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Female. And Rolling Stone now lists Roberta Flack’s version as one of the top 500 songs of all time at #369. Lauryn Hill’s version is pretty cool too.
And that is the story behind the song.
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