Most prison songs and romance go together like oil and water. If “Delia’s Gone” started playing during a love scene in a movie, I would absolutely assume that someone was about to be murdered. If “Green, Green Grass of Home” was the musical bed for a romantic reunion, I would assume that the reunion is a dream and someone’s about to wake up alone in a prison cell.
Nevertheless, one of the entertainment industry’s go-to love songs of the last five decades or so actually started out as a prison song. It duped me, it probably duped you, and it certainly duped Demi Moore, throwing clay with the ghost of Patrick Swayze, giving all new meaning to the phrase “Unchained Melody”.
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“Unchained Melody” Started As a Prison Movie Song
Tin Pan Alley lyricist Hy Zaret was hard at work painting his house when he received a call from composer Alex North about collaborating on a film project. North wrote a melody for a prison movie called Unchained Melody, but he still needed the lyrics. When he asked Zaret if he could come up with some words, the lyricist said he was too busy with housework. Fortunately for romantic music lovers everywhere, though, Zaret managed to find the time to add lyrics to North’s melody for the movie Unchained—quite literally “Unchained Melody”.
While Zaret was willing to make time for North’s project, he wasn’t quite as open to taking creative direction. Unchained, the film, followed a prisoner struggling to decide between breaking out and living life as a fugitive or serving his time and seeing his wife and family at the end of his sentence. Producers wanted Zaret to incorporate the word “unchained” into the song. But he refused, opting instead for a song about missing a faraway loved one.
The prison film wasn’t all that successful, but the song that North and Zaret wrote for it certainly was. The composer and lyricist published the song in 1955, and that same year, three recording artists landed Top 10 hits with cover versions of the track. One decade later, The Righteous Brothers became synonymous with “Unchained Melody” after releasing their version in mid-July 1965. The song made the Top 10 in the U.S. and Canada. But this wouldn’t be the last time “Unchained Melody” dominated the musical world.
From an Inmate’s Lament to a Staple in the Love Song Canon
Although The Righteous Brothers’ version of “Unchained Melody” is one of the most ubiquitous renditions of this former prison movie track, several other artists achieved success with their own covers, including Elvis Presley, Robson and Jerome, and more. Four decades after Alex North called Hy Zaret while he was doing home renovations, “Unchained Melody” had a resurgence in popularity, thanks to the tearjerker romance flick, Ghost.
The movie’s famous scene of Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze at the pottery wheel while “Unchained Melody” plays in the background catapulted the song back into the cultural zeitgeist. The Righteous Brothers’ version made its way back onto the charts all over the world, topping the charts in the U.K. and securing a No. 13 spot on the Billboard Hot 100.
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