Killing Me Softly with His Song (1973)

"Killing Me Softly with His Song" is a song composed by Charles Fox with lyrics by Norman Gimbel. The lyrics were written in collaboration with Lori Lieberman after she was inspired by a Don McLean performance in late 1971. Denied writing credit by Fox and Gimbel, Lieberman released her version of the song in 1972, but it did not chart.

In 1973, it became a number-one hit in the United States, Australia, and Canada for Roberta Flack, and also reached number six on the UK Singles Chart. In 1996, the Fugees recorded the song with Lauryn Hill on lead vocals. Their version became a number-one hit in twenty countries including Germany, where it became the first single to debut atop the chart. The version by Flack won the 1974 Grammy for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. The version by the Fugees won the 1997 Grammy for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. Propelled by the success of the Fugees track, the 1972 recording by Roberta Flack was remixed in 1996 by Jonathan Peters, with Flack adding some new vocal flourishes; this version topped the Hot Dance Club Play chart.

Flack and the Fugees would go on to perform the song together. The versions by Roberta Flack and by the Fugees were both placed on the 2021 revised list of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. According to Billboard, it is one of nearly a dozen songs to be Grammy nominated for Song of the Year that have had two versions reach the top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100.

After confirming Lieberman's contribution for decades, around 1997 Fox and Gimbel changed their story about the song's origins to downplay her role. Gimbel threatened McLean with a lawsuit in 2008, demanding he remove from his website an assertion that McLean was the inspiration for "Killing Me Softly", but McLean responded by showing Gimbel the latter's own words confirming the inspiration, published in 1973.

Lori Lieberman version

Aspiring musician Lori Lieberman was 19 years old in 1971 when she was introduced to veteran songwriter Norman Gimbel and composer Charles Fox. The two men signed her to a management contract, under which they would write her songs, manage her career and take 20% of her income. The three shared a Jewish heritage and Scorpio astrological signs, and they began to pool songwriting ideas. Gimbel also began an affair with the 19-year-old Lieberman, even though he was 43 years old and married. The affair was kept secret for years.

In November 1971, Lieberman, then 20, and her friend Michele Willens (the daughter of millionaire Harold Willens) attended a Don McLean performance at the Troubadour nightclub in West Hollywood. McLean's hit song "American Pie" was rising in the charts, but Lieberman was strongly affected by McLean singing another song: "Empty Chairs". That song spurred her to write poetic notes on a paper napkin while he was performing the song. Willens has confirmed that Lieberman was "scribbling notes" on a napkin as soon as McLean began singing the song.

After the concert, Lieberman phoned Gimbel to read him her napkin notes and share her experience of a singer reaching deep inside her world with his song. Lieberman's description reminded Gimbel of a song title that was already in his idea notebook: "killing us softly with some blues". The phrase had appeared five years earlier in the novel Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar: "and Ronald was left alone at the piano, with all the time in the world to woodshed some of his bop ideas or to kill us softly with some blues." Gimbel expanded on Lieberman's notes, fleshing them out into song lyrics. Gimbel said in 1973: "Her conversation fed me, inspired me, gave me some language and a choice of words." Gimbel passed the lyrics to Fox, who set them to music.

Lieberman recorded the song in late 1971 and released it as a single in 1972, produced by Gimbel and Fox. That version did not chart. Lieberman promoted the album by touring, and she always introduced "Killing Me Softly" by describing its origin in the McLean performance. Gimbel and Fox even wrote that introduction of the song for her, so that she could deliver it consistently at each performance. In 1973, in her first appearance on national television, Lieberman described the same origin story on The Mike Douglas Show, after performing the song. When Lieberman toured through Canada in 1974 to promote her second album, Billboard magazine carried a public relations piece from Capitol Records about the three-way "song-producing team" of Lieberman/Gimbel/Fox, including a description of the Don McLean performance inspiring the song "Killing Me Softly". Gimbel was quoted saying that he relied on Lieberman to inspire his songwriting creativity since he had passed the most creative days of his youth: "Now I need a reason to write, and Lori is one of the best reasons a lyricwriter could have."

Don McLean said in 1973 that he was surprised to find out that the song described his singing: