Unusually, the lyricist Cynthia Weil’s husband, the composer Barry Mann, came up with the line – “You never close your eyes any more when I kiss your lips” – that began a song destined to become one of the most beloved of all 1960s pop classics. She completed the thought: “And there’s no tenderness like before in your fingertips.”
Intoned by the sonorous baritone voice of the Righteous Brothers’ Bill Medley at a dead-slow tempo over the echoing canyons of a Phil Spector production, that dramatic opening drew attention so effectively that You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ topped the charts on both sides of the Atlantic in February 1965, going on to become the most played song on US radio of the 20th century.
