The words "unchain me" are sung repeatedly at the beginning and the lyrics are sung by a choir. Bandleader Les Baxter released a choral version ( Capitol Records catalog number 3055) which reached number 1 on the US charts and number 10 in the UK. Early versions įollowing the movie, there were several charting covers that were released in 1955. Although the case went to court, the dispute was resolved completely in favor of Zaret (the songwriter born Hyman Zaritsky, not William Stirrat) who continued to receive all royalties. William Stirrat, an electrical engineer, claimed to have written the lyrics as a teenager in 1936 under the pen name "Hy Zaret" only to have North use the uncredited words in the 1955 original. With Duncan singing the vocals, the song was nominated for 1955's Oscars, but the Best Song award went to the hit song " Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing". Playing one of the prisoners, he sings it, accompanied by another prisoner on guitar, while other prisoners listen sadly. Todd Duncan sang the vocals for the film soundtrack and performs an abbreviated version in the film. The song has an unusual harmonic device as the bridge ends on the tonic chord rather than the more usual dominant chord. The film centered on a man who contemplates either escaping from prison to live life on the run or completing his sentence and returning to his wife and family. Instead, Zaret chose to focus on someone who pines for a lover he has not seen in a "long, lonely time". The song eventually became known as the "Unchained Melody" even though the song does not actually include the word "unchained". After first refusing, Zaret and North together wrote "Unchained Melody." Zaret refused the producer's request to include the word "unchained" in his lyrics. North asked Hy Zaret to write the lyrics. North composed and recorded the score and then was asked to write a song based upon the movie's theme. In 1954, Alex North was contracted to compose the score for the prison film Unchained (released in 1955). In 2004, it was number 27 on AFI's 100 Years.100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema. The Righteous Brothers recording achieved a second round of great popularity when featured in the film Ghost in 1990. Hatfield changed the melody in the final verse and many subsequent covers of the song are based on his version. Of the hundreds of recordings made, the Righteous Brothers' version, with a solo by Bobby Hatfield, became the jukebox standard after its release. The song continued to chart in the 21st century, and it was the only song to reach number one with four different recordings in the UK until it was joined by Band Aid 30's " Do They Know It's Christmas?" in 2014. In 1955, three versions of the song (by Les Baxter, Al Hibbler, and Roy Hamilton) charted in the Billboard top 10 in the United States, and four versions (by Al Hibbler, Les Baxter, Jimmy Young, and Liberace) appeared in the top 20 in the United Kingdom simultaneously, a record for any song. According to the song's publishing administrator, over 1,500 recordings of "Unchained Melody" have been made by more than 670 artists, in multiple languages. It has since become a standard and one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century, most notably by the Righteous Brothers in 1965. Todd Duncan sang the vocals for the film soundtrack. North wrote the music as a theme for the little-known prison film Unchained (January 1955), hence the song title. " Unchained Melody" is a 1955 song with music by Alex North and lyrics by Hy Zaret.
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