Secret Love
Encyclopedia
"Secret Love" is a popular
song written in 1953
with music by Sammy Fain
and lyrics by Paul Francis Webster
. Its first performance was in the film
Calamity Jane by Doris Day
. It received an Academy Award for Best Original Song
. Doris Day also recorded the best-selling record of the song, which reached #1 on both the Billboard and Cash Box
charts in 1954
. The record was made on August 5, 1953. The recording was released by Columbia Records
as catalog number
40108.
recorded an R&B version for Chance Records in January 1954, released in February, 1954.[3]
Connie Francis
recorded the song on April 27, 1962 at RCA Italiana Studios in Rome for her album Connie Francis sings Award Winning Motion Picture Hits. The original version from the April 1962 with an arrangement by Geoff Love
was only available in Australia
(MGM Records
S027592) and New Zealand
(MGM Records
MCS 5017). All other world wide releases that album included a version with a new orchestration recorded in April 1963 with an arrangement by Don Costa
.
In 1963 Kathy Kirby
recorded an upbeat version of "Secret Love"; released October 1963 as a single the track - with musical direction by Charles Blackwell, Jimmy Page
on guitar and production by Kirby's regular collaborator Peter Sullivan - afforded Kirby her UK career record with a #4 UK chart peak that December. "Secret Love" was also a hit in Australia reaching #2.
The Chiffons
' version of "Secret Love, recorded for Bright Tunes Productions in 1965, was released in 1969 on B.T. Puppy Records with an international release on various labels in 1970.
Kim Weston
and Marvin Gaye
recorded "Secret Love" for their 1966 Take Two album release.
Between 1972 and 1974, this song was covered by Singapore
-based female singer Ervinna, backing music by the Charlie & His Boys, on her LP album Golden Hits Of 20th Century Vol. 4 with White Cloud Record of Singapore
.
Freddy Fender
recorded "Secret Love" in his 2002 release La Musica de Baldemar Huerta. His 1975 bi-lingual version was a number-one hit on the Billboard
Hot Country Singles
chart and a number twenty hit on the Billboard Hot 100
. Fender's version was not the first time country audiences had heard the song; Slim Whitman
had a major hit of his own in 1954 with the song.
Mandy Moore
covered the song on the Mona Lisa Smile
soundtrack. Doris Day's version was used in the actual movie.
Spike Jones
did a version of the song in the style of a Cuban Mambo band of the 1950s.
It has also been covered by José Hoebee
, a Dutch pop singer (member of the girl group
Luv'
), who reached number 11 on the Dutch Top 40 with her version in the autumn of 1982.
Liquid Gold
included a disco
remake of "Secret Love" on their 1979 eponymous album; Viola Wills
also recorded a disco version of "Secret Love" released in 1980.
Anne Murray
recorded a cover of the song for her album Croonin'
(1993).
Hannah Waddingham
performed a version in the 2011 remake of Agatha Christie's Marple: The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side on Britain's ITV1
John Serry, Sr.
arranged and recorded this composition with his ensemble on Dot Records
(DLP-3024) for his album entitled Squeeze Play in 1956.
Cerys Matthews
recorded a cover version for the Children's Hospice charity album, Over the Rainbow
.
Allan Sherman
has a light-hearted parody called "Secret Code" on his 1965 LP My Name is Allan.
Engelbert Humperdinck
made a cover of the song in 1995 (Engelbert Live, DVD 2003).
k.d. lang
made a cover of the song, to be played during the closing credits of the documentary The Celluloid Closet
(1995). The song is also shown in a clip from the original Calamity Jane movie, starring Doris Day.
Lord Tanamo
did a live version of "Secret Love" until it was recorded with Tommy McCook
in 1997. Since then The Allstonians
have been covering the song and plan on recording it in the near future.
Soul singer, Billy Stewart
, hit the Billboard Top 30 in 1966 with his wild remake.
Sinéad O'Connor
made a cover version for her 1992 album Am I Not Your Girl?
.
George Michael
made a cover version for his 1999 album Songs from the Last Century
.
R&B/jazz singer Miki Howard made a cover version for her 2008 album Private Collection.
In 2010, Australian singer Melinda Schneider
recorded the song for her Doris Day tribute album "Melinda Does Doris".
Connie Fisher
's February 2009 album release was entitled Secret Love the title cut being Fisher's rendition of the Fain/Webster song.
Cybill Shepherd
covered the song in 1999 on the album Songs from the Cybill Show, which accompanied her sitcom Cybill
.
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
song written in 1953
1953 in music
-Events:*February 6 – Contralto Kathleen Ferrier, already terminally ill with cancer, leaves Covent Garden Opera House on a stretcher after being taken ill on the second night of her run in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice....
with music by Sammy Fain
Sammy Fain
Sammy Fain was an American composer of popular music.-Biography:Sammy Fain was born in New York City. In 1923, Fain appeared with Artie Dunn in a short film directed by Lee De Forest filmed in DeForest's Phonofilm sound-on-film process. In 1925, Fain left the Fain-Dunn act to devote himself to...
and lyrics by Paul Francis Webster
Paul Francis Webster
Paul Francis Webster was an American lyricist who won three Academy Awards for Best Song and was nominated sixteen times for the award.-Biography:...
. Its first performance was in the film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
Calamity Jane by Doris Day
Doris Day
Doris Day is an American actress, singer and, since her retirement from show business, an animal rights activist. With an entertainment career that spanned through almost 50 years, Day started her career as a big band singer in 1939, but only began to be noticed after her first hit recording,...
. It received an Academy Award for Best Original Song
Academy Award for Best Original Song
The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...
. Doris Day also recorded the best-selling record of the song, which reached #1 on both the Billboard and Cash Box
Cash Box magazine
Cashbox magazine was a weekly publication devoted to the music and coin-operated machine industries in the USA which was published from July 1942 to November 16, 1996...
charts in 1954
1954 in music
-Events:*January 14 - First documented use of the abbreviated term "Rock 'n' Roll" to promote Alan Freed's Rock 'n' Roll Jubillee, held at St. Nicholas Arena in New York, New York...
. The record was made on August 5, 1953. The recording was released by Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
as catalog number
Catalog numbering systems for single records
This article presents the numbering systems used by various record companies for single records.- Capitol :...
40108.
Cover versions
The MoonglowsThe Moonglows
The Moonglows were an American R&B and doo-wop group based in Cleveland, Ohio.-Early years:Originally formed in their native Louisville, Kentucky as the Crazy Sounds, the group moved to Cleveland, where disc jockey Alan Freed renamed them 'the Moonglows'...
recorded an R&B version for Chance Records in January 1954, released in February, 1954.[3]
Connie Francis
Connie Francis
Connie Francis is an American pop singer of Italian heritage and the top-charting female vocalist of the 1950s and 1960s. Although her chart success waned in the second half of the 1960s, Francis remained a top concert draw...
recorded the song on April 27, 1962 at RCA Italiana Studios in Rome for her album Connie Francis sings Award Winning Motion Picture Hits. The original version from the April 1962 with an arrangement by Geoff Love
Geoff Love
Geoff Love was a British easy-listening, and disco orchestra leader. He was born in the industrial town of Todmorden in the West Riding of Yorkshire. His father was a mixed race American-born guitarist and dancer, and his mother an actress. As a child, Love began to learn to play the violin but...
was only available in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
(MGM Records
MGM Records
MGM Records was a record label started by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946, for the purpose of releasing soundtrack albums of their musical films. Later it became a pop label, lasting into the 1970s...
S027592) and New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
(MGM Records
MGM Records
MGM Records was a record label started by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946, for the purpose of releasing soundtrack albums of their musical films. Later it became a pop label, lasting into the 1970s...
MCS 5017). All other world wide releases that album included a version with a new orchestration recorded in April 1963 with an arrangement by Don Costa
Don Costa
Don Costa was an American pop music arranger and record producer, best known for his work with Frank Sinatra.-Career:...
.
In 1963 Kathy Kirby
Kathy Kirby
Kathy Kirby was an English singer who was reportedly the highest-paid female singer of her generation. She is best known for her cover version of Doris Day's "Secret Love" and for representing the United Kingdom in the 1965 Eurovision Song Contest, where she came in second place...
recorded an upbeat version of "Secret Love"; released October 1963 as a single the track - with musical direction by Charles Blackwell, Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page
James Patrick "Jimmy" Page, OBE is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, and record producer. He began his career as a studio session guitarist in London and was subsequently a member of The Yardbirds from 1966 to 1968, after which he founded the English rock band Led Zeppelin.Jimmy Page...
on guitar and production by Kirby's regular collaborator Peter Sullivan - afforded Kirby her UK career record with a #4 UK chart peak that December. "Secret Love" was also a hit in Australia reaching #2.
The Chiffons
The Chiffons
The Chiffons was an all girl group originating from the Bronx area of New York in 1960.-Biography:The Chiffons were one of the top girl groups of the early 1960s...
' version of "Secret Love, recorded for Bright Tunes Productions in 1965, was released in 1969 on B.T. Puppy Records with an international release on various labels in 1970.
Kim Weston
Kim Weston
Kim Weston is an American soul singer, and Motown alumna. In the 1960s, Weston scored hits with the songs "Love Me All the Way" and "Take Me in Your Arms ".-Career:...
and Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....
recorded "Secret Love" for their 1966 Take Two album release.
Between 1972 and 1974, this song was covered by Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
-based female singer Ervinna, backing music by the Charlie & His Boys, on her LP album Golden Hits Of 20th Century Vol. 4 with White Cloud Record of Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
.
Freddy Fender
Freddy Fender
Freddy Fender , born Baldemar Garza Huerta in San Benito, Texas, United States, was a Mexican-American Tejano, country and rock and roll musician, known for his work as a solo artist and in the groups Los Super Seven and the Texas Tornados...
recorded "Secret Love" in his 2002 release La Musica de Baldemar Huerta. His 1975 bi-lingual version was a number-one hit on the Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
Hot Country Singles
Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...
chart and a number twenty hit on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
. Fender's version was not the first time country audiences had heard the song; Slim Whitman
Slim Whitman
Ottis Dewey Whitman, Jr. , known professionally as Slim Whitman, is an American country music singer and songwriter, known for his yodelling abilities. He has sold in excess of 120 million albums in unit sales and has had numerous successful recordings...
had a major hit of his own in 1954 with the song.
Mandy Moore
Mandy Moore
Amanda Leigh "Mandy" Moore is an American singer-songwriter, actress and fashion designer. Moore became famous as a teenager in the late 1990s, after the release of her teen pop albums So Real, I Wanna Be with You, and Mandy Moore. In 2007, she took an adult pop-folk direction with the release of...
covered the song on the Mona Lisa Smile
Mona Lisa Smile
Mona Lisa Smile is a 2003 romantic drama film produced by Revolution Studios and Columbia Pictures in association with Red Om Films Productions, directed by Mike Newell, written by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal, and starring Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Julia Stiles...
soundtrack. Doris Day's version was used in the actual movie.
Spike Jones
Spike Jones
Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs Bunny and other Warner Brothers cartoon characters, performed a drunken, hiccuping verse for 1942's "Clink! Clink! Another Drink"...
did a version of the song in the style of a Cuban Mambo band of the 1950s.
It has also been covered by José Hoebee
José Hoebee
José Hoebee is a Dutch pop female singer. She is part of Luv' . In late 1981, she went solo and was successful in her homeland and in the Flanders region of Belgium between 1982 and 1985...
, a Dutch pop singer (member of the girl group
Girl group
A girl group is a popular music act featuring several young female singers who generally harmonise together.Girl groups emerged in the late 1950s as groups of young singers teamed up with behind-the-scenes songwriters and music producers to create hit singles, often featuring glossy production...
Luv'
Luv'
Luv is a Dutch pop girl group that scored a string of hit records in Continental Europe as well as South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico in the late 1970s and early 1980s. In 1979, Luv' was "Holland's best export act" and thus received the "Conamus Export Prize"...
), who reached number 11 on the Dutch Top 40 with her version in the autumn of 1982.
Liquid Gold
Liquid Gold
Liquid Gold was an English disco group, from Brackley in Northamptonshire. Their biggest success came in 1980 with Dance Yourself Dizzy, which peaked at number two on the UK chart.-Career:...
included a disco
Disco
Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...
remake of "Secret Love" on their 1979 eponymous album; Viola Wills
Viola Wills
Viola Wills was an American pop singer, best known for the 1979 UK Singles Chart #8 and U.S. Hot Dance Club Play #52 hit, "Gonna Get Along Without You Now". Other hits included further covers of the songs, "Both Sides Now" , and "If You Could Read My Mind" Viola Wills (December 30,...
also recorded a disco version of "Secret Love" released in 1980.
Anne Murray
Anne Murray
Morna Anne Murray CC, ONS is a Canadian singer in pop, country and adult contemporary styles whose albums have sold over 54 million copies....
recorded a cover of the song for her album Croonin'
Croonin'
-Chart performance:...
(1993).
Hannah Waddingham
Hannah Waddingham
Hannah Waddingham is an English actress and singer. She is best known for her contribution to West End theatre, particularly her original performance in Spamalot and in A Little Night Music...
performed a version in the 2011 remake of Agatha Christie's Marple: The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side on Britain's ITV1
ITV1
ITV1 is a generic brand that is used by twelve franchises of the British ITV Network in the English regions, Wales, southern Scotland , the Isle of Man and the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey. The ITV1 brand was introduced by Carlton and Granada in 2001, alongside the regional identities of their...
John Serry, Sr.
John Serry, Sr.
John Serry, Sr. was an accomplished concert accordionist virtuoso, arranger, composer, organist and educator who performed on the CBS Radio and CBS Television networks...
arranged and recorded this composition with his ensemble on Dot Records
Dot Records
Dot Records was an American record label and company that was active between 1950 and 1977. It was founded by Randy Wood. In Gallatin, Tennessee, Wood had earlier started a mail order record shop, known for its radio ads on WLAC in Nashville and its R&B air personality Bill "Hoss" Allen...
(DLP-3024) for his album entitled Squeeze Play in 1956.
Cerys Matthews
Cerys Matthews
Cerys Elizabeth Matthews is a Welsh singer and songwriter. She is known as the lead singer of the Welsh rock band Catatonia, her more recent bilingual solo career, and for a 1998 Christmas duet with Tom Jones.-Biography:...
recorded a cover version for the Children's Hospice charity album, Over the Rainbow
Over the Rainbow (2007 album)
Over the Rainbow - Show Tunes in Aid of the Association of Children's Hospices is a charity album of show tunes, recorded by various artists and released in 2007. It is in aid of...
.
Allan Sherman
Allan Sherman
Allan Sherman was an American comedy writer and television producer who became famous as a song parodist in the early 1960s. His first album, My Son, the Folk Singer , became the fastest-selling record album up to that time...
has a light-hearted parody called "Secret Code" on his 1965 LP My Name is Allan.
Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck was a German composer, best known for his opera, Hänsel und Gretel. Humperdinck was born at Siegburg in the Rhine Province; at the age of 67 he died in Neustrelitz, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.-Life:After receiving piano lessons, Humperdinck produced his first composition...
made a cover of the song in 1995 (Engelbert Live, DVD 2003).
k.d. lang
K.D. Lang
Kathryn Dawn Lang, OC , known by her stage name k.d. lang, is a Canadian pop and country singer-songwriter and occasional actress...
made a cover of the song, to be played during the closing credits of the documentary The Celluloid Closet
The Celluloid Closet
The Celluloid Closet is a 1996 American documentary film directed and written by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman. The film is based on the 1981 book of the same name written by Vito Russo, and on previous lecture and film clip presentations given in person by Russo 1972–82.Russo researched the...
(1995). The song is also shown in a clip from the original Calamity Jane movie, starring Doris Day.
Lord Tanamo
Lord Tanamo
Lord Tanamo is best known as a mento and ska performer and songwriter. He helped create the sound we now know as ska, by combining elements of calypso gleaned from Lord Kitchener, with the lilting mento rhythms of his childhood...
did a live version of "Secret Love" until it was recorded with Tommy McCook
Tommy McCook
Tommy McCook was a Jamaican saxophonist. A founding member of The Skatalites, he also directed The Supersonics for Duke Reid, and backed many sessions for Bunny Lee or with The Revolutionaries at Channel One Studios in the 1970s.-Biography:McCook was born in Havana, Cuba, and moved to Jamaica in...
in 1997. Since then The Allstonians
The Allstonians
The Allstonians are a third wave ska/reggae band formed in Allston, Massachusetts in 1992. They have released three albums, on the Moon Ska Records label and the most recent on Fork In Hand Records. They have also appeared on many ska compilations. The band has been featured on MTV's The Real...
have been covering the song and plan on recording it in the near future.
Soul singer, Billy Stewart
Billy Stewart
Billy Stewart was an American musical artist, with a highly distinctive scat-singing style, who enjoyed popularity in the 1960s.-Biography:...
, hit the Billboard Top 30 in 1966 with his wild remake.
Sinéad O'Connor
Sinéad O'Connor
Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor is an Irish singer-songwriter. She rose to fame in the late 1980s with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra and achieved worldwide success in 1990 with a cover of the song "Nothing Compares 2 U"....
made a cover version for her 1992 album Am I Not Your Girl?
Am I Not Your Girl?
Am I Not Your Girl? is the third album by Irish singer Sinéad O'Connor and the follow-up to the hugely successful I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got. It is a collection of covers of mostly jazz standards, which Sinead describes as "the songs I grew up listening to [and] that made me want to be a...
.
George Michael
George Michael
George Michael is a British musician, singer, songwriter and record producer who rose to fame in the 1980s when he formed the pop duo Wham! with his school friend, Andrew Ridgeley...
made a cover version for his 1999 album Songs from the Last Century
Songs from the Last Century
Songs from the Last Century is an album of cover versions by singer George Michael and acclaimed producer Phil Ramone, released in December 1999...
.
R&B/jazz singer Miki Howard made a cover version for her 2008 album Private Collection.
In 2010, Australian singer Melinda Schneider
Melinda Schneider
Melinda Schneider is an Australian country music performer and the daughter of yodeler Mary Schneider. Schneider performed with her mother on the album The Magic of Yodeling at the age of eight. She studied dance as a child and made her acting debut on the popular Australian drama A Country...
recorded the song for her Doris Day tribute album "Melinda Does Doris".
Connie Fisher
Connie Fisher
Connie Fisher is a Welsh actress and singer, who won the BBC One talent contest, How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?...
's February 2009 album release was entitled Secret Love the title cut being Fisher's rendition of the Fain/Webster song.
Cybill Shepherd
Cybill Shepherd
Cybill Lynne Shepherd is an American actress, singer and former model. Her best known roles include starring as Jacy in The Last Picture Show, as Betsy in Taxi Driver, as Madeleine Spencer in Psych, as Maddie Hayes on Moonlighting, as Cybill Sheridan on Cybill, and as Phyllis Kroll on The L...
covered the song in 1999 on the album Songs from the Cybill Show, which accompanied her sitcom Cybill
Cybill
Cybill is an American television sitcom created by Chuck Lorre, which aired on CBS from January 2, 1995 to July 13, 1998. Starring Cybill Shepherd, the series revolves around Cybill Sheridan, a twice-divorced single mother of two and struggling actress in her 40s, who has never gotten her show...
.