Unchained Melody by The Righteous Brothers

So many love songs sound schmaltzy. Sometimes they are so bad that even our grandparents find them cheesy. We listen to love songs to relate to feel a part of that magic that brings us close to the ones that we love, but more often than not love songs fail to effect us in a genuine and intimate way.

Among a glut of slow tempo ballads, a couple songs rise above, redefine the genre of the love song and remind us not only how good love songs can be but also what it means to be in love. “Unchained Melody” by the Righteous Brothers is one such song.

In an earlier post, I discussed the “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’” and the blue eyed soul of the Righteous Brothers. While that song featured baritone, Bill Medley, “Unchained Melody” features the other member of this duet, Bobby Hatfield in a career defining performance.

Alex North and Hy Zaret composed “Unchained Melody” for the 1955 prison film Unchained. The film follows Steve Davitt, debating whether he should finish his sentence and see his family or escape from prison, gaining freedom but losing his family in the process.

As with many popular songs of the time, numerous people recorded the song. Following the original recording by Todd Duncan, others artist released their own version including the Lennon Sisters version. This recording is stylistically representative of the many versions of this song that artists recorded before the Righteous Brothers.



Listening to this performance on the Lawrence Welk Show, it’s hard to imagine how Phil Spector in 1965 decided to push the Righteous Brothers, a soul duo to perform such a traditional and conservative ballad.

Spector moernized "Unchained Melody" by slowing the song down and creating a huge dramatic arc with the instrumentation, starting with a light drum set, bass and guitar, and slowly adding instruments until at the end, a full orchestra and choir swell into a heart wrenching climax. Spector’s production skills and his signature “wall of sound” made the music sound big and bold with an amazing transparency that allowed listeners to hear every instrument that was playing in the rich texture.

While Spector’s instrumentation modernized the song, Hatfield’s transformed this song into a soulful and spiritual declaration of love. A soul singer at heart, Hatfield gently scoops into notes reaching peaks of melodies and slowly quivering down like in the opening line. Hatfield’s voice is a perfect tenor blend never sounding thin or weak.



If there was ever a doubt whether or not this white boy had soul, all you had to do was hear his high note on “are you still mine” in the second verse. He rises up to it effortlessly and collapses down the notes like a person drained from emotional pain.

In the final chorus, Hatfield takes us to church, singing like a preacher. He doesn’t so much sing but confesses. He hesitates on notes and digs in on the word “hunger.” There is something both beautiful and painful in his voice. Only someone who is missing his or her true love could be in the pain that Hatfield expresses at the end of the song when he opens up to his heavenly falsetto pleading, “I need your love.”

There is nothing schmaltzy about The Righteous Brothers version of the song. Even though it was recorded in 1965, it doesn’t sound dated. Yes, the melody is beautifully crafted and the lyrics are perfect. However, it’s the musical landscape created by Spector, and Hatfield’s dramatic performance that brings forth the soul of this song: a longing for the ultimate in human connection and the magic that can only be described as true love.