"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" is a 1957 folk song
written by political singer/songwriter Ewan MacColl for Peggy
Seeger, who was later to become his wife.
MacColl wrote the song for Seeger, also a folk singer, after
she asked him to pen a song for a play she was in. MacColl
wrote the song and taught it to Seeger over the phone. The
alternative version of the creation of this song is that
MacColl was challenged by a friend to write a love song, with
no politics. This song was the result.
MacColl and Seeger included the song in their repertoire,
when performing in folk clubs around Britain. During the 1960s,
it was recorded by various folk singers (including a version as
a solo guitar instrumental by Bert Jansch).
The song entered the pop mainstream when it was released by
Roberta Flack, in 1972. The Flack version was much slower than
the original: an early solo recording by Seeger, for example,
clocked in at two and a half minutes long, whereas Flack's is
more than twice that length. It was subsequently covered by
numerous other artists.
MacColl was an absolute folk purist (for example he did not
approve of English people singing Scottish folk songs, or vice
versa) and reputedly hated almost all the recordings of the
song, including Flack's. His daughter-in-law is quoted as
saying:
The song was popularized by Roberta Flack and became a
breakout hit for the singer after it appeared in the film
Play Misty for Me. Though the song first appeared on
Flack's 1969 album
First Take, Flack's recording of the song topped the
Billboard Hot 100 and won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year
three years later.
Flack's slower, more sensual version was used by Clint
Eastwood in his 1971 directorial debut
Play Misty for Meduring a lovemaking scene. With the new
exposure, Atlantic Records cut the song down to four minutes
and released it to radio. It became an extremely successful
single in the United States, hitting number 1 on the Billboard
Hot 100 chart in the spring of 1972 and remaining there for six
weeks; the song also spent six weeks at the top of Hot Adult
Contemporary Tracks. It reached number fourteen on the UK
Singles Chart. The success of "The First Time Ever I Saw Your
Face" essentially launched Flack's career as a popular singer,
and the single became one of her signature songs.
Ewan MacColl himself made no secret of the fact that he
disliked almost all of the cover versions of the song,
referring to them collectively as "the Chamber of Horrors".
"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" has been covered by
numerous artists such as:Elvis Presley, Harry Belafonte, Lena
Horne, George Michael, Marianne Faithfull,Kate Havnevik, the
Kingston Trio, June Tabor, the Chad Mitchell Trio-Mike Kobluk
solo, Gordon Lightfoot, Vern Gosdin, Shirley Bassey, Steven
Houghton, Céline Dion, Bert Jansch, Maria Taylor, Peter, Paul
and Mary, We Five, Johnny Cash, The Chi-Lites, José Carreras,
Michael Sweet, Jeffrey Gaines, Isaac Hayes, Nana Mouskouri,
Bradley Joseph, Joanna Law, Richard Marx, Alison Moyet,
Stereophonics & Jools Holland, Mel Tormé, Vanessa L.
Williams, Mathilde Santing, Cindytalk, Amanda Palmer, Conner
Reeves, Christy Moore, Vikki Carr, Brian Kennedy, David Cook,
Journey South, Bobby Vinton, Kate Ceberano, Lauryn Hill, Leona
Lewis, Gregorian, Wayne Newton, Engelbert Humperdinck, The
Temptations, The Smothers Brothers, Johnny Mathis, Paul Potts,
Jeffrey Osborne, Andy Williams, Joe and Eddie, Bob Monkhouse,
Petula Clark, Harry Connick, Jr., Aaron Neville and Marcia
Griffiths (member of the I-Threes). There is also a jazz
rendition of the song by the Rachel Z trio, on their album of
the same name.
It has been used as a sample in Mastersafe's 1992 Breakbeat
Hardcore release on Formation records In Your Eyes, Joanna
Law's vocal appeared on Way Out West (musicians)'s The Gift and
the Drum & Bass song Dimensional Entity, released by Teebee
and the Future Prophecies.
Leona Lewis' version of the song has been used in a
commercial in the United Kingdom for Sekonda watches.
The song was used on a Oil of Olay commercial, in the early
1980's.
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(Volare)" ·
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Knife" ·
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Francisco" ·
"Days of Wine and
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"The Girl from
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"A Taste of
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"Strangers in the
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"Up, Up and
Away" ·
"Mrs. Robinson"
"Aquarius/Let the Sunshine
In" ·
"Bridge over Troubled
Water" ·
"It's Too
Late" ·
"
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
" ·
"Killing Me Softly with His
Song" ·
"I Honestly Love
You" ·
"Love Will Keep Us
Together" ·
"This
Masquerade" ·
"Hotel
California" ·
"Just the Way You
Are"
"What a Fool
Believes" ·
"Sailing" ·
"Bette Davis
Eyes" ·
"Rosanna" ·
"Beat It" ·
"What's Love Got to Do with
It" ·
"We Are the
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"Higher Love" ·
"Graceland" ·
"Don't Worry, Be
Happy"
"Wind Beneath My
Wings" ·
"Another Day in
Paradise" ·
"Unforgettable" ·
"Tears in
Heaven" ·
"I Will Always Love
You" ·
"All I Wanna
Do" ·
"Kiss from a
Rose" ·
"Change the
World" ·
"Sunny Came
Home" ·
"My Heart Will Go On"
"Smooth" ·
"Beautiful
Day" ·
"Walk On" ·
"Don't Know
Why" ·
"Clocks" ·
"Here We Go
Again" ·
"Boulevard of Broken
Dreams" ·
"Not Ready to Make
Nice" ·
"Rehab" ·
"Please Read the
Letter"
"Use Somebody"