Cynthia Weil, trailblazing lyricist who co-wrote such enduring hits as You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ – obituary
Cynthia Weil, who has died aged 82, was one of the first women to breach the all-male citadel of America’s Tin Pan Alley in the early 1960s, forming a lifelong hit-making partnership with her husband, Barry Mann, that yielded, among many others, the chartbusting You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’ (1965); with Ellie Greenwich and Carole King, she blazed a trail in pop music songwriting as one of the few women to challenge the all-male hegemony that encircled the Broadway hit factories of the 1960s.
Although a trained pianist, she worked as the wordsmith of the team while Mann composed both music and lyrics. Summoned to Los Angeles from their base in New York by the “Wall of Sound” producer Phil Spector in late 1964, Cynthia Weil and Mann were commissioned to write a big ballad to launch Spector’s latest pop act, Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield, known collectively as the Righteous Brothers.
Ensconced in Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont hotel with their German Shepherd Jody, they rented a piano and came up with a dramatic ballad of overpowering passion and urgency, with Mann’s arresting opening line “You never close your eyes any more when I kiss your lips”. The rest of the lyrics were largely the work of Cynthia Weil, including a particular line she disliked and intended to replace. But when they played it to Spector down the telephone, he insisted that the offending line “You’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’” would make a great title and that they would be mad to change it.
After its opening observation that the singer’s lover no longer closes her eyes because his eyes, too, are wide open, searching for telltale signs of boredom or betrayal, the song becomes a litany of anguished accusations on which the listener eavesdrops. Hearing it for the first time on his car radio, the songwriter Jimmy Webb remembered being “blindsided” and being forced to pull over, “windshield wipers flapping at top speed, to clear away the tears”.
The song shot to the top of the US chart, but in Britain it had to contend with a cover version from Cilla Black. Only after the Righteous Brothers arrived in London to promote the record did it climb to No 1.
Bobby Hatfield was unhappy that Bill Medley had the whole of the first verse to himself, and asked Phil Spector what he was supposed to do while “the big guy” was singing. “You can go to the bank,” Spector replied. Cynthia Weil and Mann’s song was indeed one of pop’s great money-spinners, logging more than 10 million broadcasts over the ensuing 40 years in the United States alone, more than even the Beatles. By 2010 the Righteous Brothers’ recording was radio’s most-played song of all time, with 14 million airplays.
Weil and Mann also wrote the duo’s follow-up (You’re My) Soul and Inspiration, which became their second US No 1 in April 1966. In the same year the songwriting duo also furnished the British group the Animals with their British No 2 hit We Gotta Get Out of This Place, and Paul Revere and the Raiders with their anti-drug song Kicks.
For Eydie Gormé, Cynthia Weil and Mann wrote Blame it on the Bossa Nova, a huge hit in 1963, and the same year collaborated with Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to produce On Broadway, a US No 9 for the Drifters, and Only In America.
Originally, Weil and Mann’s base was the offices of Aldon Music at 1650 Broadway, a stone’s throw from the Brill Building, and the command post of Don Kirshner, the publisher who also employed Neil Sedaka, Howard Greenfield, Gerry Goffin and Carole King.
Unlike Cynthia Weil’s conservative Republican upbringing, Mann’s background was radical and Left-wing. But while still a young woman she had developed a social conscience and become something of a rebel, and when the pair wrote Uptown, inspired by Weil observing a handsome black man pushing a handcart through New York’s garment district, they composed what she called “one of the first sociological songs”. It got to No 13 in May 1962.
Although Weil and Mann’s string of hits largely petered out at the end of the 1960s, the partnership continued to enjoy widespread acclaim for the quality of the songs they turned out.
Cynthia Weil was born on October 18 1940 in Manhattan, where her father owned two furniture stores. She enjoyed a comfortable, middle-class upbringing, attending the private Walden School and studying piano and ballet. A visit to her first Broadway musical, The King and I, inspired her to work in show business, and after a year at the University of Michigan studying theatre, she transferred to Sarah Lawrence College in Yonkers, where she upset her straitlaced mother (her father having died when she was seven) by singing in nightclubs in her spare time.
Having studied the lyrics to more Broadway shows, she met Frank Loesser, composer of such hit musicals as Guys and Dolls and The Most Happy Fella, who invited her in to his publishing firm to try collaborating with his staff writers. Nothing came of this, however, and it was only a chance meeting with Barry Mann, through family connections, that set her on the road to success. In the meantime she found work in a dress shop, and in the evenings worked with Carole King and Gerry Goffin, who taught her to be less sophisticated in her lyrics and more commercial.
Although they came from different musical backgrounds, Mann suspected that “the kind of lyrics she was writing, which had this Broadway kind of quality, would be really interesting to write with rock and roll,” When they made a demo recording of their first joint effort, Mine Till Monday, Don Kirshner, who already employed Mann, also signed Cynthia Weil at $50 a week.
In collaboration with Goffin, Mann enjoyed a sizeable hit with the novelty number Who Put the Bomp (in the Bomp, Bomp, Bomp), but his first joint songwriting venture with Cynthia Weil, called Bless You, recorded by Tony Orlando, was much bigger, reaching No 16 in October 1961. Cynthia Weil and Mann married the same month.
Weil and Mann’s song catalogue also included I Just Can’t Help Believing (recorded by BJ Thomas and Elvis Presley); I’m Gonna Be Strong and Looking Through the Eyes of Love (Gene Pitney); Saturday Night at the Movies (the Drifters); and Walking in the Rain (the Ronettes).
Although Weil and Barry Mann separated for a time in the 1980s, their marriage endured and they continued to write hits ranging from Rock and Roll Lullaby for BJ Thomas, Here You Come Again for Dolly Parton, and Somewhere Out There, the theme song for the animated film An American Tail and a hit for James Ingram and Linda Ronstadt in 1987. The same year they were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann’s place in the pantheon of pop is assured. “Although many of their later songs have been big, bland ballads,” observed the Brill Building historian Ken Emerson, “no pop music songwriting team has remained together, active and successful, as long as Weil and Mann.”
In 2010 the pair received the Ahmet Ertegun Award (for non-performers) at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In her acceptance speech Cynthia Weil declared: “From the bottom of my heart and with the greatest humility, I thought you guys would never ask.”
Cynthia Weil is survived by her husband and their daughter.
Cynthia Weil, born October 18 1940, died June 1 2023
