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"Killing Me Softly with His Song" is a song composed by Charles Fox with lyrics by Norman Gimbel. The song was written in collaboration with Lori Lieberman, who recorded the song in late 1971. In 1973 it became a number-one hit, in US and Canada, for Roberta Flack, also reaching number six in the UK Singles Chart. The song has since been covered by numerous artists. ==The Lori Lieberman version, disputed origins== Norman Gimbel came to California in the mid-1960s. He was introduced to the Argentinean-born composer Lalo Schifrin (then of ''Mission: Impossible'' fame) and began writing songs to a number of Schifrin's films.〔 Both Gimbel and Schifrin made a suggestion to write a Broadway musical together, and Schifrin gave Gimbel an Argentinean novel—''Hopscotch'' by Julio Cortázar—to read as a possible idea. The book was never made into a musical, but in chapter 2, the principal character describes himself as sitting in a bar listening to an American pianist friend 'kill us softly with some blues.' Gimbel put the idea in his 'idea' book for use at a future time with a parenthesis around the word 'blues' and substituted the word 'song' instead. According to Lori Lieberman, the artist who performed the original recording in 1972, the song was born of a poem she wrote after experiencing a strong reaction to the song "Empty Chairs," written, composed, and recorded by Don McLean. She then related this information to Gimbel, who took her feelings and put them into words. Then, Gimbel passed the words on to Fox, who set them to music.〔Billboard Magazine, June 22, 1974. Page 53.〕 Don McLean said he didn’t know the song described him and, when asked about it, said “I’m absolutely amazed. I’ve heard both Lori’s and Roberta’s version and I must say I’m very humbled about the whole thing. You can’t help but feel that way about a song written and performed as well as this one is.” Nevertheless, Fox has repudiated Lieberman's having input into the song's creation, saying: "We (Gimbel and Fox ) wrote the song and () heard it and said it reminded her of how she felt at (Don McLean ) concert. Don McLean didn't inspire Norman or me to write the song but even Don McLean thinks he's the inspiration for the song according to his official website!"〔''Daeida'' February 2012 p.11〕 Don McLean validated Lieberman both on his website and from the stage of a concert he invited her to attend in 2010. However, the matter only reached an unequivocal conclusion when contemporaneous articles from the early 1970s were exhumed, all of them vindicating Lieberman. In an April 5, 1973 article in the Daily News, Norman Gimbel was quoted as follows: "She (Lieberman ) told us about this strong experience she had listening to McLean ("I felt all flushed with fever / Embarrassed by the crowd / I felt he had found my letters / And read each one out loud / I prayed that he would finish / But he just kept right on…"). I had a notion this might make a good song so the three of us discussed it. We talked it over several times, just as we did for the rest of the numbers we wrote for this album and we all felt it had possibilities".〔O'Haire, Patricia (“A Killer of a Song ),” ''Daily News''〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Killing Me Softly with His Song」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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