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Composition
Composer(s)
Artist
Year Released
Chart Appearance
Artist
Year Released
Chart Appearance
Killing Me Softly (With His Song)
Charles Fox & Norman Gimbel
1973
1 (Hot 100)
1996
1 (U.S. Top 40)
Starting in summer of 1996, the Fugees version of “Killing Me Softly with His Song” kicked off a span of three or four years where the collective of The Fugees and two of its individual members ruled urban and popular radio, video outlets, dancefloors and backyard barbecues. “Killing Me Softly” was followed up by another monster single “Ready or Not” before Wyclef Jean released his highly acclaimed, deliciously varied “The Carnival” in June of 1997. Fifteen months later, Lauryn Hill left the world shook with her one-off, Grammy-winning “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill” that has sold a reported 20 million copies worldwide.
All this brouhaha around The Fugees started with a seemingly innocuous remake of a Roberta Flack classic that Flack herself had stolen from an obscure singer named Lori Lieberman who was inspired to write down her feelings after attending a Don McLean(the bye bye Ms. “American Pie” dude) concert. She shared her notes with her then-managers who beefed up the words, put them to music and then proceeded to erase her contributions by denying her a songwriting credit. This dispute went on for many years, even somehow drawing McLean into the fray, but all that thievery and bickering among wipepo is of little interest here.
Roberta Flack heard the song on a flight and after making some structural changes to the song (and some collegial encouragement from Marvin Gaye), Roberta recorded her version, released it on the 1973 album of the same, albeit truncated, name, and the rest is history. The song won Roberta her second Record of the Year Grammy Award in a row as well as Best Female Pop Vocal, accolades that got labelmate Aretha Franklin’s panties in a serious bunch as these were Grammy categories she had longed to be considered for, but was repeatedly reminded that her style of gospel-infused pop was not of the ilk to be considered for such illustrious, mainstream recognition. With 1972’s “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” and “Killing Me Softly with His Song”, Roberta Flack had elbowed Aretha in the gut and took her place as a premier, mainstream vocalist, at least in the eyes of white listeners. This was something Franklin never forgave Roberta for.
No matter how competitive and outwardly odious Aretha could be towards her Black female contemporaries, there was no way she could not deny the remarkable performance Roberta turned in on her version of “Killing Me Softly” and I love the fact that they decided to go with a one drop drum, leaving wide open spaces for Roberta’s melancholic voice to color in. There are also many things I like about The Fugees’ version of “Killing Me Softly with His Song”. They kept the tenderness and grown lady innocence of the original, but completely updated the sound, taking it from the barstools of a bluesy cocktail lounge and inserting it into the humid basement club of Brooklyn where Timberlands and weed smoke ruled. They maintained the sparseness of the original, little more than a drumbeat, making it accessible enough for your mom to not turn the station when it came on, but rhythmic enough to bump from your car as you cruise down Ocean Avenue towards Coney Island.
It’s been well documented that all the success so suddenly sent Lauryn Hill over the edge of sanity, but she turned out not to be the craziest mo-fo associated with this song by a country mile. She’s a veritable June Cleaver compared to Aswad Ayinde, the award-winning video director who sat at the helm of the Fugees’ video for this song. He is currently in custody for years of raping and subsequently impregnating his own daughters. This nigga needs to be killed hardly with aplomb for his horrific crimes against humanity.
“Killing Me Softly (With His Song)” Grade Report
Roberta Flack
Grade: A
The Fugees
Grade: B+
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