(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please CLICK HERE)
Maureen McGovern - "The Morning After"
Hit Number 1: August 4, 1973
Stay at Number 1: 2 Weeks
Who even is Maureen McGovern? That's the question I asked myself before I started writing this. What's funny is that her song hit #1 in the middle of all these widely celebrated artists. So far in 1973, we've seen artists like Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Paul McCartney hit #1, and that's only a few of the great artists that have done so this year. But what year would be complete without the obscure artist and song that randomly hit #1? Well, there's actually a pretty good reason for McGovern's song, "The Morning After" to have hit #1. It was part of a movie soundtrack for The Poseidon Adventure, a film that included five Oscar winners.
In order to not spoil the plot for anyone that's never seen it, The Poseidon Adventure follows the journey of shipwreck survivors as they try to escape the wreck before the ship sinks. McGovern, unlike Lulu with "To Sir with Love", didn't have any role in the movie. In fact, she didn't record her version of the song until after the release of the movie, with the song in the movie being performed by Carol Lynley. The song appeared during two scenes, once during a warm-up rehearsal, and then later during a New Year's Eve Party, which was towards the beginning of the movie. Now knowing that, it makes the success of "The Morning After" more bewildering. It's not like the song played at some dramatic moment in the movie. Maybe I'm just not getting something here, and I can't always understand everything. It doesn't help that I wasn't around in 1973.
The song was also pieced together in just one night. 20th Century Fox songwriters, Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn, were asked to write a song for the movie in the one night, and originally the song was titled "Why Must There Be a Morning After?", but was switched to "there's got to be a morning after." Reportedly, the goal was to make the song sound more optimistic. The song would come to be known as "The Morning After" of course, and Maureen McGovern, a Broadway actress, decided to record and release her very own version after the success of The Poseidon Adventure. Upon further research, this was something McGovern did a lot of. She also had renditions of songs from The Towering Inferno and another song from the TV series Angie. Other than that, she's lived in relative obscurity. If it wasn't for writing about this song today, I'd probably never know who she was.
Her version of "The Morning After" is a perfectly forgettable piece of music. McGovern is surrounded by a swooping orchestra, with a string section and a double-vocal with her own voice. It's the kind of song that I just don't have much to say about. It's okay, and McGovern brings a good vocal performance to the table, but at the end of the day it's generic. There's nothing all that special about it. Though the song has no real reason to exist, it's still somewhat impressive that McGovern was able to bring a song to #1 in the midst of all the superstars doing the same around her. Hell, there's plenty of great artists who have not hit #1. So, regardless of what I think of her song, at least she had a #1 hit. No one's going to take that away from her.
(McGovern's song was also the 300th #1 hit on the Hot 100, meaning this is my 300th #1 song review. I'd say that's a pretty cool milestone)
GRADE: 5/10
JUST MISSED:
The only reason I can think of for this to happen is that people liked The Poseidon Adventure more than they liked the James Bond movie Live and Let Die. Paul McCartney & Wings' epic banger of the same name peaked at #2 behind "The Morning After". It's a 9.
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