by Gail Kavanagh

Created on: January 06, 2009

No one who has ever seen the movie Ghost can ever forget the scene at the potter's wheel with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore. Part of its emotional impact was due to the Righteous Brothers singing Unchained Melody on the soundtrack. If ev er there was a contender for Best Song of All Time it would be this passionate and haunting ballad, the theme song to many a movie and real life love affair.

The story of the song is almost as romantic as the lyric, although it is somewhat more prosaic than the legends that have grown up around it. Some believe it was written by a life term prisoner longing for his wife, others that it is based on a classical music fragment by a famous composer.

In fact, the soul tearing lyric of Unchained Melody was composed at summer camp in 1936, by a lovesick youngster hoping to win the girl of his dreams.

William Stirrat was just 16 when he fell in love with Cookie, the `prettiest girl in the neighborhood' but was too shy to reveal his feelings. Instead he wrote Unchained Melody, pouring out his love and longing into the timeless poetry of the lyric.

Music was later added by film composer Alex North, who helped trigger one of the legends by using it on the soundtrack of the prison film Unchained, released in 1955. Starring Elroy Hirsch and Barbara Hale, it quickly faded into obscurity, but the song refused to follow it.

Version after version followed the soundtrack recording by Les Baxter, which took the song to Number One on the Billboard charts. Besides the Les Baxter version, the song charted with cover versions by Al Hibbler, Roy Hamilton and June Valli. In Britain, Jimmy Young and flamboyant pianist Liberace also took cover versions to Number One. After 19 years in limbo, Unchained melody was an overnight success.

The following year, rocker Gene Vincent recorded the song, but it was calypso warbler Harry Belafonte that recorded the hit version. It seemed this was not only a song with timeless melody and lyric, it could be adapted to any style of performer.

The 60s spawned many musical styles, but the most pervasive and ear catching was surely the `wall of sound' created by producer Phil Spector. He created richly layered backings for the likes of Ike and Tina Turner and the Ronettes. In 1965 he grabbed the talented duo of Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield, known as the Righteous Brothers, from another record company. The duo's vocals were layered, like his productions, with the tenor warblings of Hatfield set over the deep dark bass tones of

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