Zaret liked to tell about the time the composer Alex North called him to say he had written a song for a movie and needed words. Zaret replied that he was busy painting his house. But he found time to write the lyrics for "Unchained Melody." The movie itself, UNCHAINED (1955), a low-budget prison film, turned out to be a lot less memorable than the song. Zaret, a habitual contrarian, refused a producer's request to include the word "unchained" in his lyrics, though it was impossible to keep it out of the title. The words have again and again evoked a lover's loneliness in recordings by more than 300 artists, including Lena Horne, Guy Lombardo, the Righteous Brothers, Elvis Presley and U2: "Oh, my love, my darling, I've hungered for your touch a long, lonely time. ..."
The song's triumphal march began when it was nominated in 1955 for an Academy Award for best original song. In 1992, after the Righteous Brothers' recording was featured in the 1990 film GHOST, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers gave it an award for being the year's most-performed song. In 1999, ASCAP said it was one of the 25 most-performed songs and musical works of the 20th century. In a list released in 2003, ASCAP called it the most-performed love song of the 1950s.
None of Zaret's other songs came close to this success, but many did very well. "One Meat Ball," a novelty song with music by Lou Singer about a poor man with only 15 cents to spend for a meatball, was a hit for the Andrews Sisters in 1945. Jimmy Dorsey took "My Sister and I," a tale of sisters in an occupied country, written with Alex Kramer and Joan Whitney, to No. 1 in 1941. Vaughn Monroe had a No. 1 song with "There I Go," which Zaret wrote with Irving Weiser, in the early 1940s. "Dedicated to You," written with Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin, is a perennial jazz favorite. And, "So Long, for a While," for which he wrote the lyrics, was the closing theme song for "Your Hit Parade," a show that for many years played the week's top songs, on radio and later on television. His songs were used in WHAT'S COOKIN'? (1942), ALWAYS A BRIDESMAID (1943) and ABROAD WITH TWO YANKS (1944). Zaret also wrote the English lyrics for Anna Marly's French Resistance song "The Partisan," which Leonard Cohen recorded.
Although Mr. Zaret appreciated the royalties -- "Unchained Melody" made him financially independent -- he was just as proud of the educational and public service songs he wrote, often with Lou Singer, for radio, television and schools. He addressed fire prevention with "Never Clean With Gasoline," fought racism with "Brown-Skinned Cow" and satisfied curiosity with "Why Are Bananas Picked Green?" and "How Does a Frog Become a Frog?"
Zaret's name would become an issue again years later when William Stirrat, an electrical engineer, claimed he had written "Unchained Melody" in 1936 as a romantic teenager under the pen name Hy Zaret. Several articles on Stirrat's claims to authorship were printed. Legal proceedings ensued, but the dispute was resolved completely in favor of Zaret, who continued to receive all royalties. Stirrat, who reportedly had legally changed his name to Hy Zaret, died in 2004.
In June, 2007, the Songwriters Hall of Fame honored "Unchained Melody" with its Towering Song award for having "influenced the culture in a unique way over the years."
Nominated for Music Best Song 1955: UNCHAINED "Unchained Melody" - Lyric
1 nomination