You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'

Background and composition

In 1964, music producer Phil Spector conducted the band at a show in San Francisco where the Righteous Brothers was also appearing, and he was impressed enough with the duo to want them to record for his own label Philles Records. All the songs previously produced by Spector for Philles Records featured black singers, and the Righteous Brothers would become his first white vocal group. However they had a black vocal style, termed blue-eyed soul, that suited Spector.

Spector commissioned Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil to write a song for the group, bringing them over from New York to Los Angeles to stay at the Chateau Marmont Hotel so they could write the song. Taking a cue from "Baby I Need Your Loving" by The Four Tops that was then rising in the charts, Mann and Weil decided to write a ballad. Mann wrote the melody first, and came up with the opening line "You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips", influenced by a line from the song "I Love How You Love Me" that was co-written by Mann - "I love how your eyes close whenever you kiss me". Mann and Weil wrote the first two verses quickly, including the chorus line "you've lost that lovin' feelin'", and Spector added "gone, gone, gone, whoa, whoa, whoa" to the end of the chorus, which Weil disliked. The line "you've lost that lovin' feelin'" was originally only intended to be a dummy line that would be replaced later, but Spector liked it and decided to keep it. The form of the song is of verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus or ABABCB form. Mann and Weil had problems writing the bridge and the ending, and asked Spector for help. Spector experimented on the piano with a "Hang On Sloopy" riff that they would then use to build on for the bridge.

Weil recalled that, "after Phil, Barry and I finished [writing it], we took it over to the Righteous Brothers. Bill Medley, who has the low voice, seemed to like the song." However, Medley initially felt that the song didn't suit their more up-tempo rhythm and blues style, and Mann and Spector had sung the song in a higher key: "And we just thought, "Wow, what a good song for The Everly Brothers." But it didn't seem right for us." The song, which has a very big range, was originally written at a higher key of F. To accommodate Medley's baritone voice, this was gradually lowered, eventually down to C♯, which, together with slowing the song down, changed the "whole vibe of the song" according to Medley.

Bobby Hatfield reportedly expressed his annoyance to Spector when he learned that Bill Medley would start the first verse alone and he would have to wait until the chorus before joining Medley’s vocals. Previous to this they would have been given equal prominence in a song. When Hatfield asked Spector just what he was supposed to do during Medley’s solo, Spector replied: "You can go directly to the bank!"

The Righteous Brothers original version

The song was recorded at Studio A of Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles. When Hatfield and Medley went to record the vocals a few weeks after the song was written, all the instrumental tracks had already been recorded and overdubbed. They would repeat recording the vocal many times - Medley would sing the opening verse over and over again until Spector was satisfied, then the process would be repeated with the next verse. The recording took over 39 takes, and around eight hours over a period of two days.

The song would become one of the foremost examples of Spector's "Wall of Sound" technique. It features the studio musicians the Wrecking Crew, included for this recording were Don Randi on piano, Tommy Tedesco on guitar, Carol Kaye and Ray Pohlman on bass, and Steve Douglas on sax. They were also joined by Barney Kessel on guitar and Earl Palmer on drums for this session. Jack Nitzsche usually arranged the songs for Spector but he was absent, and the arrangement for this song was done by Gene Page. As with his other songs, Spector started by cutting the instrumental track first, building up layers of sound to create the Wall of Sound effect. The recording was done mono so Spector could fix the sound exactly as he wanted it. According to sound engineer Larry Levine, they started recording four acoustic guitars, when that was ready, they added the pianos, of which there were three, followed by three basses, the horns (two trumpets, two trombones, and three saxophones), then finally the drums. The vocals by Hatfield and Medley were then recorded and the strings overdubbed. The background singers were mainly the vocal group The Blossoms, also joining in the song's crescendo was a young Cher. Reverb was applied in the recording, and more was added on the lead vocals during the mix. According to music writer Robert Palmer, the effect of the technique used was to create a sound that was "deliberately blurry, atmospheric, and of course huge; Wagnerian rock 'n' roll with all the trimmings."

The song started slowly in the recording, with Medley singing in a basso profondo voice. Right before the second verse started Spector also wanted the tempo to stay the same but the beat would also be just a little behind where they are supposed to land to give the impression of the song slowing down. The recorded song was three ticks slower and a tone and a half lower than what Mann and Weil had written. When Mann heard the finished record over the phone, he thought that it had been mistakenly played at 33 1/3 instead of 45 rpm and told Spector, "Phil, you have it on the wrong speed!"

Even with his interest in the song, Medley had his doubts because of its length that was then unusually long for a pop song. In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, he recalled, "We had no idea if it would be a hit. It was too slow, too long, and right in the middle of The Beatles and the British Invasion." The song ran for nearly four minutes when released. This was too long by contemporary AM radio standards, as the radio stations then rarely played songs longer than three minutes because longer songs meant that fewer ads could be placed between song sets. Spector however refused to cut it shorter. Following a suggestion by Larry Levine, Spector had "3:05" printed on the label, instead of the track's actual running time of 3:45. He also added a false ending which made the recording more dramatic, and would also trick radio deejays into thinking it was a shorter song.

The production of the single cost Spector around $35,000, then a considerable amount. Spector himself was deeply concerned about the reception to a song that was unusual for its time, worrying that his vision would not be understood. He canvassed a few opinions - his publisher Don Kirshner suggested that the song should be re-titled "Bring Back That Lovin' Feelin'", while New York DJ Murray the K thought that bass line in the middle section similar to that of a slowed-down "La Bamba" should be the start of the song. Spector took these as criticisms and later said: "I didn't sleep for a week when that record came out. I was so sick, I got a spastic colon; I had an ulcer."

Reception

Andrew Oldham, who was then the manager of The Rolling Stones and a fan and friend of Spector, chanced upon Spector listening to a test pressing of the song that had just been delivered to Spector. Oldham later wrote: "The room was filled with this amazing sound, I had no idea what it was, but it was the most incredible thing I'd ever heard." He added: "I'd never heard a recorded track so emotionally giving or empowering." Later, when Cilla Black recorded a rival version of the same song and it was racing up the charts ahead of The Righteous Brothers' version in Britain, Oldham was appalled, and took it upon himself to run a full-page ad in Melody Maker:

In other ads, Oldham also coined a new term to describe the song, the "Phil Spector's Wall of Sound", which Spector would later register as a trademark. Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys heard the song and rang Mann and Weil in January 1965: "Your song is the greatest record ever. I was ready to quit the music business, but this has inspired me to write again."

Assessments by music writers were also highly positive. Nick Logan and Bob Woffinden thought that the song might be "the ultimate pop record ... here [Spector's] genius for production truly bloomed to create a single of epic proportion ..." Richard Williams, who wrote the 1972 biography of Phil Spector Out of His Head, considered the song to be one of the best records ever made, while Charlie Gillett in his 1970 book The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll wrote that "the ebb and flow of passion the record achieved had no direct equivalent." Mick Brown, author of a biography of Spector Tearing Down the Wall of Sound, considered the song to be "Spector's defining moment" and his "most Wagnerian production yet - a funeral march to departed love". The opening line was said to be "one of the most familiar opening passages in the history of pop", and Vanity Fair described the song as "the most erotic duet between men on record". However, when it was first presented on the BBC television panel show Juke Box Jury in January 1965 upon its release in the UK, it was voted a miss by all four panelists, with one questioning if it was played at the right speed.

There were initially reservations about the song from the radio industry; a common complaint was that it was too long, and others also questioned the speed of the song, and thought that the singer "keeps yelling". Some stations refused to play the song after checking the song's length, or after it caused them to miss the news. The radio industry trade publication Gavin Report offered the opinion that "blue-eyed soul has gone too far". In Britain, Sam Costa, a DJ on the BBC Light Programme, said that The Righteous Brothers' record was a dirge, adding, "I wouldn't even play it in my toilet." However, despite the initial reservations, the song would become a highly popular song on radio.

Spector himself would later rate the song as the pinnacle of his achievement at Philles Records.

Commercial success

"You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" made its debut in the charts on December 12, 1964. It topped the Billboard Hot 100 on February 6, 1965 and remained at No. 1 for a further week (February 13). Due to its length, it became at that time the longest ever song to top the chart. In addition, the song crossed over to the R&B charts, peaking at number two. Billboard ranked the record as the number 5 song of 1965.

The song was released in January 1965 in the UK. It debuted at No. 35 on the UK Top 40 chart, for the chart week of January 20, 1965. It reached No. 1 in its fourth week (February 10) and remained there the following week. It would become the only single to ever enter the UK Top 10 three times, having been successfully re-releases in 1969 (No. 10), and again in 1990 (No. 3) as a follow-up to the re-release of "Unchained Melody", which had hit No. 1 after being featured in the film Ghost. "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" also reached No. 42 after a 1977 re-release and in 1988 reached No. 87.

In Ireland, "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin" charted twice, first in January 1965, when it peaked at No. 2, and second in December 1990, following its reissue, when it peaked at No. 2 again. The original Righteous Brothers recording remains the only version of the song to chart in Ireland. In the Netherlands "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin" reached No. 8 in March 1965 with three versions ranked together as one entry: the versions by the Righteous Brothers and Cilla Black plus a local cover by Trea Dobbs (NL).

Recognition

In 1965, the Righteous Brothers recording of "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" was nominated in the Best Rock and Roll Recording category at the 7th Annual Grammy Awards. It was also awarded Best Pop Single To Date 1965 in the Billboard Disc Jockey Poll.

In 2001, this recording was ranked at No. 9 in the list of Songs of the Century released by the Recording Industry Association of America and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2004, the same recording was ranked at No. 34 by Rolling Stone magazine in their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. In 2005, "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" was awarded the Songwriters Hall of Fame's Towering Song Award presented to "the creators of an individual song that has influenced the culture in a unique way over many years".

In 2015, the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress, which each year selects from 130 years of sound recordings for special recognition and preservation, chose the Righteous Brothers recording of the song as one of the 25 recordings that has "cultural, artistic and/or historical significance to American society and the nation’s audio legacy".

Chart performance