by Kevin Burton
Roberta Flack had an ear for music as good as her legendary voice, and she knew she was on to something.
The vocalist-composer-arranger was on a cross-country flight when she first heard “Killing Me Softly With His Song” over headphones on the plane’s sound system. Flack would re-shape the song into the 1973 song of the year, number one for five weeks in February and March of 1973.
For Flack, who died yesterday at age 88, it was the second of three number one hits she would have, and the biggest hit of her career. She died 52 years to the day that “Killing Me Softly” became number one.
With music by Charles Fox, and lyrics credited to Norman Gimbel, the version Flack heard was sung by aspiring musician Lori Lieberman. On one of those little napkins we all get on planes, Flack re-ordered the lyrics and sketched a new arrangement, wrote Marc Myers in his book “Anatomy Of 55 More Songs: The Oral History of Top Songs That Changed Rock, Pop and Soul.”
“I probably heard it four times on the flight,” Flack said. “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.”
Flack got sheet music for the song when producer Quincy Jones put her in touch with Fox. Then she got to work
Flack spent three months in the studio perfecting the song, wrote Fred Bronson in the “Billboard Book of Number One Hits.”
What she was tinkering with was the background vocals. On the original, a sort of lifeless string arrangement can be heard in the places where Flack later added her own soaring whoa-oh-ohs and na na na na nas, plus background singers in elaborate harmonies.
Atlantic executive Tunc Erim assured Flack that the song was an obvious hit, no matter what background vocals she put on it. But she refused to let the song be released until she was happy with it.
She proved to be right.
“In the studio I gave my arrangement a 2-4 feel and took it a little faster than the original,” Flack told Myers. “I wanted a groove that depended the song’s meaning.”
“I also decided to open the song with the chorus rather than the first verse. ‘Strumming my pain with his fingers’ is such a strong line. The rest of the chorus is powerful and set the song’s tone.” Flack said.
And it wasn’t just that. That chorus intro, as performed by Flack and the band, is nothing short of ethereal.
“There obviously was magic in her voice and in her arrangement decisions,” Fox said. “As soon as the song opens and you hear her voice, you have to listen to it.”
The Lieberman version was a plain-Jane track that Flack would call “unfinished.” Flack’s soulful voice and studio acumen would transform it into an all-time favorite. Not sure why anyone would cover the Flack version and subject themselves to comparison with her, but plenty of people have.
Flack was a classically trained pianist discovered in the late 1960s by Jazz musician Les McCann, who later wrote that “her voice touched, tapped, trapped, and kicked every emotion I’ve ever known,” according to the Associated Press.
“For Flack’s many admirers, she was a sophisticated and bold new presence in the music world and in the social and civil rights movements of the time,” the AP wrote. “Flack sang at the funeral of Jackie Robinson, major league baseball’s first Black player.”
“I love that connection to other artists because we understand music, we live music, it’s our language,” Flack told songwriteruniverse.com in 2020. “Through music we understand what we are thinking and feeling.”
The song’s Wikipedia page notes that the lyrics to Killing Me Softly with His Song “were written in collaboration with Lori Lieberman,” who was the first to release the song as a single.
Look, I wasn’t there, but Lieberman appears to have been cheated out of a co-writer’s share on the song. It was (any maybe still is?) quite common for a woman working in the music industry to be cheated like that.
. “According to Lieberman, the song was inspired by Don McLean,” wrote SongFacts. “After being mesmerized by McLean at the Troubadour theater in Los Angeles – and in particular McLean’s song “Empty chairs,” – Lieberman wrote a poem on a napkin describing how she felt about McLean’s performance and brought it to Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox at Capitol Records, who were writing songs for her new album.”
Lieberman also had several subsequent conversations with Gimbel about her concert experience. But when it came time to write the checks for writers’ shares, Lieberman was left out.
So, the young boy, killing softly with his song, strumming people’s pain, was Don McLean.
McLean was “absolutely amazed” that he was the subject of the song. “I’ve heard both Lori’s and Roberta’s version and I must say I’m very humbled about the whole thing. You can’t help but feel that way about a song written and performed as well as this one is.” Mclean said, as quoted by Wikipedia.
Lieberman recorded the song in late 1971 and released it as a single in 1972, produced by Gimbel and Fox. This version did not chart..
In September 1972, Flack was opening for Jones at the Los Angeles Greek theater. After performing her prepared encore song, Flack was advised by Jones to sing an additional song.
Flack recalled, “I said ‘Well, I have this new song I’ve been working on.’… After I finished, the audience would not stop screaming. And Quincy said, ‘Ro, don’t sing that daggone song no more until you record it.”
Another footnote, Helen Reddy has said she was sent the song, according to Wikipedia but, “the demo… sat on my turntable for months without being played because I didn’t like the title.”
Oh thank God for that! Look, I love Helen Reddy, but not on Killing Me Softly.
Flack died at home surrounded by her family, said publicist Elaine Schock. She had announced in 2022 she had ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease and could no longer sing, according to the AP.
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