Today’s classic song of the day is a nice little bit of easy listening fluff from Australian songstress Olivia Newton-John. The song is “Sam” and, when it was released as a single in January of 1977, it went to #20 on the Billboard Hot 100, #34 on the Cash Box Top 100, and #1 on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart.
“Sam” was written by the team of Don Black, Hank Marvin, and John Farrar. Black was a professional lyricist who provided words for the theme songs to the movies Born Free, To Sir, With Love, and True Grit, as well as theme songs for the James Bond movies Diamonds Are Forever, The Man With the Golden Gun, Tomorrow Never Dies, and The World is Not Enough. Marvin was the former guitarist for the British band the Shadows and wrote songs for that group, Cliff Richards, and other artists. Farrar was also a member of the Shadows and wrote several other singles for Olivia Newton-John, including “Have You Never Been Mellow” (1975), “You’re the One That I Want” (1978 duet with John Travolta), “Hopelessly Devoted to You” (1978), and “Magic (1980).” He was also Ms. Newton-John’s full-time producer, and produced this single.
Here’s what Mr. Farrar remembers about this tune:
“I had done a lot of the song long before it was finished, I think Hank had a couple of verses and I did the chorus on it. First Hank and I came up with the music and later Don Black was invited to help with the words… Sam did not refer to anyone, it just scanned well and sounded good but as soon as I heard it in the studio it struck me as a hit. I remember when we recorded it in Nashville, it went down great.”
“Sam” was that unusual top forty hit written in 3/4 time, what some might call “waltz time.” Most pop tunes are in straight-ahead 4/4 with backbeats on the two and four, but 3/4 has a more lilting feel with no obvious backbeat. It fits for this one.
For today’s daily bonus video of the day, we go to the BBC’s The Royal Windsor Big Top show on May 29th, 1977, and Ms. Olivia Newton-John singing “Sam” live in concert. This may be one of her lesser-known hits, but it’s an appealing one.
