Summertime: Bus Stop

Lori Lieberman: Bus Stop

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I wanted to behave myself. I wanted to post Bus Stop this week, and I wanted to follow the informal rule here, that a posted song must be old enough to have stood the test of time. So I went looking for versions of Bus Stop, and I found plenty of them. Then I listened. A distressing number of them are sound-alikes of the original Hollies version. A small number display the disastrous results of poor artistic decisions. I appreciate the artistry of the original all the more, knowing how badly the song can be done. But then there is this.

I reviewed Lori Lieberman’s album Gun Metal Sky just last year on Oliver di Place, and her Bus Stop was one of the songs I posted then. Usually, I favor original songs over covers in my reviews. But there are times when a cover version of a well known song reveals just as much originality as the artist’s original songs. This was one of those times. Lieberman’s Bus Stop is a delicate work that perfectly captures the innocence of the summer romance described here. It caused me to completely reevaluate a song I had never really liked. I can think of no higher compliment than that.

BTW, perhaps as you have been reading this, you have had the gnawing thought that you should know who Lori Lieberman is. One evening, 40 or so years ago, Lieberman went to hear a young singer named Don McLean. That performance inspired Lieberman to write the poem that became Killing Me Softly With His Song. That song may have been a sort of one-hit wonder, but I can prove that there is more to Lieberman than that.

1973: Killing Me Softly

Lori Lieberman: Killing Me Softly With His Song

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Roberta Flack: Killing Me Softly With His Song

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The Fugees: Killing Me Softly With His Song

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I don't normally do more than one contribution per theme but the entire week has passed and nobody has posted the Grammy winner for "Song of the Year" in 1973.

To quote Gomer Pyle, "For shame, for shame, for shame".

While kids today probably think this is a Fugees song the truth is it was originally recorded in 1971 by Lori Lieberman. The song was inspired by the poem, "Killing Me Softly with His Blues", which she wrote after seeing a then-unknown Don McLean perform the song "Empty Chairs" live. Charles Fox and Norman Gimbel turned the poem into a song for her 1971 debut album, Lori Lieberman. Roberta Flack would cover it for use as the title track on her 1973 release, Killing Me Softly. Roberta not only rode the song to #1 on the Billboard 100 for 4 weeks she cashed in on three Grammy's with it: Song of the Year, Record of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Female Performer.

See y'all next week.

Submitted by Autopsy IV