Movie soundtracks sometimes work like a lifeboat. The film sinks into obscurity, and one song floats off and finds a much longer life somewhere else.
Plenty of people can hum these three tunes without knowing where they started. The films behind them are far less familiar.
Unchained Melody
The song was written in 1955 for a prison drama called Unchained. Alex North composed the music and Hy Zaret wrote the lyrics. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Song, so it had real standing from the start.
The film itself faded from public memory, while the song kept getting recorded again. The Righteous Brothers had a huge hit with it in 1965. In 1990 the movie Ghost gave it another round of fame, and by then most listeners had no idea a prison film came first.
Wind Beneath My Wings
Larry Henley and Jeff Silbar wrote this ballad in the early 1980s. It was tied to the Pavarotti comedy Yes, Giorgio from 1982, a film that didn’t leave much of a mark. Several artists recorded it in the years afterward, and none of those versions turned it into a standard.
That changed when Bette Midler sang it in Beaches in 1988. Her version became a chart success and later won Grammy Awards for both Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Today it turns up at weddings and funerals, usually with no thought of the movie that first carried it.
Ben
Michael Jackson recorded this one for the 1972 horror film Ben, a sequel to Willard about a boy and his pet rat. Don Black wrote the lyrics and Walter Scharf composed the music. It’s a tender song about friendship, which is a strange match for a movie about rats.
The single reached number one in the United States and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. It also won a Golden Globe. Fans still know it as an early solo highlight for Jackson, while the film is mostly remembered as a curiosity.
