" The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face " is a 1957 folk song written by British singer and songwriter Ewan MacColl for Peggy Seeger, who later became his third wife. At that time, MacColl was still married to his second wife, Jean Newlove. During the 1960s, the song was recorded by several folk-pop singers, including the Kingston Trio, We Five, The Chad Mitchell Trio, Gordon Lightfoot, and Peter, Paul and Mary. In 1972, Roberta Flack made the song a major international hit, and it won Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Billboard listed it as the top Hot 100 song of 1972. Country music artist Johnny Cash also recorded the song for his 2002 album American IV: The Man Comes Around.
History
The song was written by Ewan MacColl after Peggy Seeger asked him to create a song for a show she was performing in. He wrote it quickly and taught it to her over the telephone. Peggy Seeger later shared more about the story. She had begun a romantic relationship with MacColl in London in 1956 but returned to the United States to keep a physical distance from him because he was already married and had a child. Despite this, they stayed in touch by phone, and MacColl sent her tapes to listen to while they were apart. The next year, when Seeger was working on a radio show in Los Angeles, she told MacColl that the show needed a "hopeful love song" because the folk songs she performed were often sad. During one of his phone calls from England, MacColl sang the song he had written to Seeger. Although the song was about their relationship, Seeger said she did not connect with it in the same way because she was not "in love" with him at the time. Instead, she performed it from his perspective. Seeger sang the song in Los Angeles and then in Chicago, but MacColl never recorded it after singing it to her.
Although Seeger was the first to perform the song at live folk concerts, she did not release her version until 1962. The earliest recording of the song was made in 1961 by Bonnie Dobson and included on her debut album, She's Like a Swallow and Other Folk Songs, released in June 1961. Dobson first heard Seeger perform the song at the Colorado Folk Festival on October 31, 1960, and learned the lyrics after hearing other performers sing it at later concerts.
MacColl openly expressed his dislike for all the cover versions of the song. His daughter-in-law wrote that he "hated all of them" and kept a special section in his record collection for them, called "The Chamber of Horrors." He compared the Elvis version to "Romeo at the bottom of the Post Office Tower singing up to Juliet." He also called other versions "poor versions" that were "lacking in grace." Peggy Seeger said she initially disliked how Roberta Flack sang the song when it became popular but later "came to like it a lot."
Roberta Flack version
The song became popular because of Roberta Flack's version, which was a major success for her in 1971–1972. The single was not widely known when it was first released in 1969 on her album First Take, but it gained attention more than three years later. This happened partly because the song was included in Clint Eastwood's 1971 film Play Misty for Me, which was his first movie as a director. Flack's recording of the song reached the top of the Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1972, more than three years after it was recorded.
Flack first heard the song from the version recorded by Joe & Eddie, which appeared on their 1963 album Coast to Coast as "The First Time." Her friend, singer Donal Leace, introduced her to the song. After teaching "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" to girls in the glee club at Banneker High School in Washington, D.C., Flack often performed the song at Mr. Henry's, a club on Pennsylvania Avenue where she worked as a resident singer starting in 1968. In February 1969, Flack recorded the song for her debut album First Take. Her version was much slower than the original by Seeger, lasting more than twice as long as Seeger's two-and-a-half-minute recording. Flack later said she felt sad about the loss of her pet cat, which had been hit by a car, when she recorded the song.
Flack's slow and emotional version of the song was chosen for Play Misty for Me, where it played during a love scene featuring Eastwood and actress Donna Mills. Eastwood heard Flack's version on his car radio while driving in Los Angeles and called her at her home in Alexandria, Virginia. He asked her to let him use the song in his movie, saying it would be the only part of the film with pure love. Flack agreed, and Eastwood offered her $2,000 to use the song. When Flack suggested re-recording it because she felt it was too slow, Eastwood disagreed.
During the First Take recording sessions, Flack's producer, Joel Dorn, suggested re-recording the song with a slightly faster tempo and shorter lyrics to make it shorter. Flack refused, saying she did not care if it became a hit. Three years later, after Play Misty for Me was released in November 1971, Flack's version became very popular. This led Atlantic Records to release the song as a single in February 1972, with the recording shortened by one minute. The single reached No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and easy listening charts for six weeks in 1972. It also reached No. 4 on the R&B chart and No. 14 on the UK Singles Chart. In Canada, the song was No. 1 for three weeks on the RPM magazine singles chart.
"The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" was played as wake-up music for the astronauts on Apollo 17 on flight day 9 (December 15, 1972), their final day in lunar orbit before returning to Earth. Apollo 17 marked the last human mission to the Moon. The use of the song may have been inspired by the view of the Moon's surface below the spacecraft.