This Is My Song (1967 song)
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| "This Is My Song" | ||||
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| Single by Petula Clark | ||||
| from the album These Are My Songs | ||||
| B-side | "High" (US) "The Show Is Over" (UK) |
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| Released | February 1967 | |||
| Format | Vinyl | |||
| Recorded | December 1966 | |||
| Genre | Pop, Vocal | |||
| Length | 3:16 | |||
| Label |  Pye 7N 17258 (UK) Warner Bros. 7002 (US) Vogue V 4185 (FRA) |
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| Writer(s) | Charlie Chaplin | |||
| Producer | Sonny Burke | |||
| Certification | Silver Gold |
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| Petula Clark singles chronology | ||||
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"This Is My Song" is a composition by Charlie Chaplin written in 1966.
Contents |
[edit] Origin/ Petula Clark recording
"This is My Song" was intended for the film, A Countess from Hong Kong, which Charlie Chaplin wrote and directed. Chaplin saw his film as a throwback to the shipboard romances which were popular in the 1930s and wrote "This Is My Song" with the intent of evoking that era: to reinforce the evocation Chaplin was determined to have Al Jolson sing the song - so determined that he only accepted the advisement that Jolson had died in 1950 when shown a photograph of Jolson's tombstone.[citation needed] Ultimately, the song would be featured in the film only as an instrumental.
After being disillusioned in regard to Jolson, Chaplin considered having "This Is My Song" recorded by Petula Clark who had a home in Switzerland near his residence. Clark's husband/manager Claud Wolf received a copy of "This Is My Song" in September of 1966 and liked the song which he felt had especial potential for success in Germany. However Clark's regular collaborator Tony Hatch was not impressed with the song and refused Wolf's invitation to arrange it for Clark to record; ultimately Ernie Freeman arranged the song and Sonny Burke produced the session in which Clark recorded the song not only in English but in French as "C'est Ma Chanson" (lyrics by Pierre Delanoë who also felt the song a poor choice for Clark), German as "Love, So Heisst Mein Song" (lyrics by Joachim Relin) and Italian as "Cara Felicita" - lyrics by Ciro Bertini).
[edit] UK #1
Clark found the song's English lyrics mawkish and attempted to block the single release of that version. Instead, she found herself atop the UK charts for the first time in six years when "This Is My Song" reached #1 on the UK Top Fifty dated 18 February 1967 a position it retained the next week. Certified Silver for sales of 250,000, the total sales of "This Is My Song" in the UK would in fact exceed 500,000.
The uncertainty over the single release of Clark's English version led to a cover of "This Is My Song" being cut by Harry Secombe with Wally Stott responsible for arranging and conducting. Secombe himself found the lyrics risible - several takes were necessitated due to his bursting into laughter when he tried to sing the line: "I care not what the world may say". Despite the eventual UK release of Clark's version as a single "This Is My Song"'s appeal was strong enough to sustain two versions high on the chart. Secombe's version debuted at number 44 on 25 February 1967 (the second week Clark's version was number one) to rise as high as number two on the chart dated 1 April (which featured Clark's version at number eight).
- Clark's previous UK number-one song, "Sailor", had also had a rival version - in that instance by Anne Shelton - which had reached the top ten (Wally Stott had also overseen the Shelton recording).
- "This is My Song" (in English) is the second Petula Clark hit for which she's expressed dislike, the other being "My Love".
[edit] International success
Petula Clark's "This Is My Song" was number one for four weeks in Ireland and six weeks in Australia, with number-one rankings also achieved in Rhodesia, South Africa and on the Dutch charts for both the Netherlands and Belgium. "This Is My Song" also earned hit status in India (#5), New Zealand (#15) and Norway (#6).
In its North American single release - which omitted the opening section - "This Is My Song" reached number three U.S. and number four in Canada. In its US release, "This Is My Song" earned Clark a Gold record for sales of one million.
"Cara Felicita" and "C'est Ma Chanson" reached #1 in Italy and France, respectively. The French version not only reached number three on the chart for Belgium's French-speaking sector but also number ten on that country's Dutch chart where the English version had hit number one; total sales of the French language version were reported as 500,000. In Germany, the English version competed with the German language version with the former more successful, reaching number 16 while "Love, So Heisst Mein Song" peaked at number 23.
[edit] Aftermath
Although Clark had become a fixture on the upper realms of the U.S. charts via her collaboration with writer/producer Tony Hatch on "Downtown", her corresponding UK success had been more hit-and-miss. The last two singles prior to "This Is My Song": "Who Am I?" and "Colour My World" had failed to rank in the UK Top 50 making the strong UK showing of "This Is My Song" - Clark's first single release since "Downtown" neither written nor produced by Hatch - the more remarkable.
The follow-up single "Don't Sleep in the Subway" resumed the Clark/Hatch collaboration and was a UK hit (#12) but like all Clark's releases after "This Is My Song" would fail to return her to the UK Top Ten.[1]
Despite Clark's reservations re the English version of "This is My Song":
- the song's popularity mandates its inclusion in any concert Clark gives in the English speaking world; Clark generally performs the song combining French lyrics with the English.
- the one published biography of Clark written to date - by Andrea Kon in 1983 - is entitled This Is My Song (W.H. Allen & Co. Ltd.).
[edit] Cover versions
Ray Conniff recorded and released the song as the title cut of an album with his Ray Conniff Singers in 1967. Also in May 1967, actor Jim Nabors released the song on the album "Jim Nabors By Request" (cut 8 of 11).[2]
The Seekers also recorded a version of "This Is My Song" in 1967, however the track was unreleased until 1995 when it was included on The Seekers - Complete box set. On the Seekers' Night of Nights...Live! release from 2002, "This Is My Song" follows "Ten Thousand Years Ago" - which only features the group's male members - to showcase Judith Durham as a solo vocalist.
"This Is My Song" has also been recorded by Frank Sinatra, James Darren, Andy Williams, The Lettermen, Connie Francis (live version) and Engelbert Humperdinck (whose "Release Me" succeeded Clark's version of "This Is My Song" at #1 UK and kept Secombe's version at #2). It has been released many times as an instrumental and recorded by other artists such as Paul Mauriat, Percy Faith, The Ray Charles Singers in January 1968 on "At the Movies with the Ray Charles Singers"[3], Sounds Spectacular, and Fantastic Strings.[4]
[edit] References
- ^ Chart listings at PetulaClark.net
- ^ http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/nabors_jim/albums.jhtml?albumId=409124
- ^ http://www.mtv.com/music/artist/ray_charles_singers/albums.jhtml?albumId=640728
- ^ http://www.billboard.com/#/search/?Nty=1&Ntx=mode%2bmatchallpartial&Ntk=Keyword&Ns=FULL_DATE%7c1&Ne=125&N=129&Ntt=This+is+My+Song
| Preceded by "I'm a Believer" by The Monkees |
UK number one single 16 February 1967 for two weeks |
Succeeded by "Release Me (And Let Me Love Again)" by Engelbert Humperdinck |
