第一次看到你的脸 (1957)

"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" is a 1957 folk song written by British political singer-songwriter Ewan MacColl for Peggy Seeger, who later became his third wife. At that time, MacColl was still married to his second wife, Jean Newlove. During the 1960s, it was recorded by various singers and became a major international hit for Roberta Flack in 1972, winning Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Billboard ranked it as the number-one Hot 100 single of the year for 1972. Celine Dion enjoyed a UK chart hit with the song in 2000, and Leona Lewis also charted with it in 2007.

History

The song was written by Ewan MacColl after Peggy Seeger asked him to write a piece for a show she was performing in at the time. He wrote it quickly and taught it to Seeger over the telephone. Seeger later provided additional background. She had begun an affair with MacColl in London in 1956 but later returned to the U.S. in part to distance herself because he was already married with a child. They remained in contact by phone, and MacColl also sent her tapes to listen to while they were apart. The following year, when Seeger was working for a radio show in Los Angeles, she told MacColl that the producers wanted a "hopeful love song" because the folk material she performed was mostly sad. During one of his calls from England, MacColl sang the new song to her. Although the song was written about MacColl and Seeger, she said she did not interpret it that way at the time because she was not "in love" with him, and she performed it from his perspective instead. Seeger performed the song in Los Angeles and later in Chicago, but MacColl never recorded it after singing it to her.

Although Seeger was the first to perform the song live at folk concerts, she did not release her version until 1962. The earliest recording was made in 1961 by Bonnie Dobson and issued on her June 1961 debut album, She's Like a Swallow and Other Folk Songs. Dobson first heard Seeger perform it at the Colorado Folk Festival on October 31, 1960, and learned the lyrics after hearing other performers sing it at later concerts.

MacColl made no secret of his dislike for the cover versions. His daughter-in-law wrote: "He hated all of them. He had a special section in his record collection for them, entitled 'The Chamber of Horrors'. He said that the Elvis version was like Romeo at the bottom of the Post Office Tower singing up to Juliet. The other versions, he thought, were travesties: bludgeoning, histrionic, and lacking in grace." Peggy Seeger said she disliked Roberta Flack's interpretation when it became a hit but has since "come to like it a lot".

Roberta Flack version

The song was popularized by Roberta Flack in a version that became a breakout hit for the singer in 1971–1972. The single became a sleeper hit more than three years after its original 1969 release on her album First Take, partly because it was used in Clint Eastwood's 1971 directorial debut Play Misty for Me. Flack's recording later topped the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1972 more than three years after it was recorded.