Roberta Flack discovered Lori Lieberman’s “Killing Me Softly With His Song” on a plane from L.A. to New York, and made it her own. “I was not limited to just taking the song off of the page of music,” said Flack. After seeing the crowd reaction to her cover of the song while on tour with Quincy Jones, Jones convinced her to record it.
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TRANSCRIPT
- [Roberta] I had gone out to California to do a special, got on the plane in L.A.
to come back to New York, by myself, and I opened the brochure that describes what music you can select, and there's a song, 'Killing Me Softly With His Song.'
Hmm.
♪ I heard he sang a good song ♪ ♪ I heard he had a style ♪ - And I listened to it about five times before the plane landed.
♪ I came to see him, to listen for a while ♪ - When I got ready to do the song, I was hoping that I'd hear some little opening there say, 'Aha, you could do that, you don't have to do this,' and it would sound great.
The whole section of, (sings wordless tune) that little thing that I do in the middle, Nowhere on Charles Fox, Norma Gimbel's music is that printed.
That's mine.
I also changed the chord structure.
To my ears, it sounded better.
I was not limited to just taking the song off of the page of music.
(thoughtful music) Maybe about two weeks later, went on tour with Quincy Jones.
We did our date at the Greek Theatre.
And then when it was over, and they wanted an encore and Quincy said, 'Ro, do something.'
I said, 'Well, I have this new song I've been working on.'
So I started in, ♪ Strummin' my pain with his fingers ♪ ♪ Singing my life ♪ (thoughtful music) (faint cheering) After I finished, the audience would not stop screaming.
(crowd cheering) And Quincy said, 'Ro, don't sing that daggone song no more until you record it.'
And I said, okay.
That was it.
♪ Strummin' my pain with his fingers ♪ Beautiful song.
♪ Singing my life with his words ♪