"Downtown" is a pop song composed by Tony Hatch which as recorded by Petula Clark became an international hit - #1 in the US - early in 1965.

Tony Hatch recalls: "'Downtown' was written on the occasion of my first visit to New York. I was staying at a hotel on Central Park and I wandered down to Broadway and to Times Square and, naively, I thought I was downtown. Forgetting that in New York especially downtown is a lot further downtown getting on towards Battery Park. I loved the whole atmosphere there and the song came to me very, very quickly."[1]

Hatch had originally intended to present "Downtown" to The Drifters, but when British singer Petula Clark heard the incomplete tune, she proposed that if he could write lyrics to match the quality of the melody, she would be interested in recording it.

"Downtown" was recorded 16 October 1964 at the Pye Studios in Marble Arch. Thirty minutes before the session was scheduled, Hatch was still touching up the song's lyrics in the studio's washroom. Hatch always insisted on recording all the personnel on his productions actually performing together as would be heard on the finished track: the large number of personnel contributing to the "Downtown" session necessitated that two studios be utilized for the track's recording, with a closed-circuit television connection allowing Hatch to conduct the personnel in both the studio in which he was physically present and the auxiliary studio.[2] The session personnel on "Downtown" included guitarists Vic Flick, Jimmy Page and Big Jim Sullivan,[3] and also drummer Bobby Graham[4] and the Breakaways vocal group.[5]

"Downtown" entered the UK Top 50 dated the week 14 November 1964 ending a virtual two year UK chart absence for Clark; of the ten singles she'd had released in the UK during that period only one: "Chariot", #39 the spring of 1963, had appeared in even the lower charts. "Downtown" rose to #2 that December remaining there for three weeks, kept out of the #1 position by the Beatles' "I Feel Fine". Certified a Gold record for sales in the UK of 400,000, "Downtown" also reached #2 in Ireland and #1 in Australia, New Zealand, Rhodesia and South Africa, and was also a hit in India (#3) and Norway (#8).

However "Downtown" had its greatest significance in the reception it was afforded in the US. Warner Bros. a&r man Joe Smith was scouting in London for records with American hit potential, the musical British Invasion of the US then going strong. Smith wanted to release Clark's "Downtown" in the US and when a surprised Hatch asked if Smith didn't consider "Downtown" to be "a very English record" he recalls Smith's reply as: "It's perfect. It's just an observation from outside of America and it's just beautiful and just perfect." [6]

Warner Bros. released "Downtown" in the US in December of 1964: the track appeared near the bottom of the national charts the week before Christmas and despite the Christmas season traditionally being the worst time to break a new hit "Downtown" shot up to the Top Ten in five weeks and the next week - 23 January 1965 - was #1. "Downtown" retained that position a further week before being overtaken by the ascendancy of the Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'". Clark became the first UK female artist to have a US #1 hit during the rock and roll era and the second in the annals of US charted music, Vera Lynn having hit #1 US with "Auf Wiederseh'n Sweetheart" in 1952. "Downtown" also made Clark the first UK female artist to have a single certified as a Gold record for US sales of one million units. "Downtown" would be the first of fifteen consecutive hits Clark would place in the US Top 40 during a period when she'd have considerably less chart impact in her native UK, there reaching the Top 40 eight times.

Clark, who had been playing to her French speaking fans in small venues in Quebec when "Downtown" entered the US charts, swiftly cut non-English versions of the song for the markets in France, Italy and Germany; the absence in each region's language of a two-syllable equivalent of "downtown" necessitated a radical lyric recasting for the versions aimed at France ("Dans le temps"), Italy ("Ciao Ciao") and Spain ("Chao Chao") which respectively charted at #6, #2 and - for three weeks - #1. "Dans le temps" also reaching #18 in the Wallonia region of Belgium. The title and lyric "Downtown" was retained for an otherwise German version which was the most successful foreign language version reaching #1 in Germany and also reaching #5 in Austria and #11 on the charts for the Flanders region of Belgium.

Petula Clark has re-recorded the "Downtown" four times, in 1976 (with a disco beat), in 1984 (with a new piano and trumpet intro that leads into the song's original opening), in 1988 with Dutch producer Eddy Ouwens for the album "My Greatest" for release in the UK, Germany and Benelux only, and in 1996. In addition, the original 1964 recording was remixed and re-released in 1988, 1999, and 2003.

Following 9/11, New York City adopted Clark's version of "Downtown" as the theme song for a series of commercials encouraging tourism to Lower Manhattan. The song has been used by other metropolitan areas — including Chicago, Indianapolis, and Singapore — for promotional purposes as well.

"Downtown" has been covered numerous times by other artists since Clark's original recording, notably by Dolly Parton in 1984. After she recorded the track in December 1983, "Downtown" appeared on Parton's album of cover versions, The Great Pretender. It was followed by a single release of the track on RCA Records in April 1984 and proved to be a moderate success, peaking at number eighty-seven on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart and number twenty-seven on the Hot Country Songs chart in the United States. Parton's version altered some of the lyrics: "Listen to the rhythm of a gentle bossa nova" became "Listen to the rhythm of the music that they're playing".

Emma Bunton's remake of "Downtown" was released in 13 November 2006. Bunton, whose admiration for Petula Clark was evident on the 2004 Free Mealbum, had recorded "Downtown" at AIR Studios {Lyndhurst) with Simon Franglen producing; the orchestra for the track was recorded at Angel Studios with Gavin Wright conducting. Bunton's "Downtown" was selected as the 2006 BBC Children in Need single, with all proceeds from the release going to the charity and Bunton performed "Downtown" on the 2006 Children in Needtelethon which began broadcast that 17 November. The single debuted on the UK singles chart dated 25 November 2006 at #24. Centralfm.com noted Bunton's chart debut, declaring "Downtown" "the song she was born to cover...One of the all time great pop songs, ["Downtown"] was long overdue for a revival and Emma Bunton pays it the respect it deserves."

Centralfm predicted "Downtown" would rise to the Top 3 in its second week and the single did indeed jump to #3 on the chart for 2 December 2006: the mid-week stats had ranked "Downtown" at #2 behind "Patience" by Take That but on the chart for the full week Bunton was bested not only by Take That at #1 but by the previous week's #1 "Smack That" by Akon which outsold "Downtown" by fifty-seven copies. In fact "Downtown" was Bunton's highest charting single since her #1 solo debut "What Took You So Long?" in 2001. However "Downtown" proved to have little staying power, spending only three weeks in the Top 20, performances by Bunton on a Christmas Day broadcast of Top of the Popsand New Year Livefailing to significantly buoy its popularity.

These are the formats and track listings of major single releases of "Downtown".

UK Sales: 77,039

Directed by Harvey & Carolyn, (the directors who also directed her video for her single "Maybe") the sexually suggestive music video for the single is set in a hotel bedroom featuring Bunton as a maid. It includes appearances from contestants from the BBC's reality television show Strictly Come Dancingand features cameos from Matt Dawson, Louisa Lytton, Carol Smillie, Spoony, Mark Ramprakash, Claire King, Peter Schmeichel, Craig Revel Horwood, Anton du Beke, Brendan Cole, Erin Boag, Lilia Kopylova, Karen Hardy, and Darren Bennett. Though the lyrics are innocuous, in the video Bunton's body language clearly twists the song title into a euphemism for sexual activity. Bunton, however, has denied this repeatedly, for example in this interview with online music magazine Popjustice:

Popjustice: "The dancers in the 'Downtown' video seem to know you very well indeed. So well that they are all pointing at your fanny. Was this your idea?", Bunton: "I don't understand where this has come from. It is a dance routine and it is nothing to do with anything like that. It is everyone else's dirty little minds. Especially yours. It worries me because it is a classic and you can't make classics rude."