And when we hit the chorus, one of us - I think it was me - sang out, you've lost that loving feeling. WEIL: You know, Barry started playing that opening melody, and I'm not sure which one of us - as a matter of fact, I think it was Barry who came up with the opening line, you never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips. GROSS: Cynthia Weil, what was the part of the lyric that came to you first that you built everything else around? MANN: You know, where they go (vocalizing, singing) baby, baby, I'd get down on my knees for you - it kind of - for that period, I think it was kind of very different to come out with something like that in a ballad. GROSS: When you say that part of the melody hadn't ever been done before, which part are you referring to? Maybe you can hum it for us. GROSS: Oh, so he lied about the length so DJs. So that's about the only difference I can talk about now. And so Phil Spector, who produced the record, even though it was - I think it was two - he put 2:58 on it, even though I think it ran around 3:10 or so. And also, at the time, the record ran long, which nowadays, it's really short. That middle part that - of the song, the - you know, the kind of the soulful part had never been done before. MANN: Well, I don't know if it would be interesting now, but when we wrote the song, it was very - it was a - very different for its time. GROSS: Barry Mann, let me ask you first, what's happening in the melody of that song? Is there anything that you worked on that is particularly interesting to describe? TERRY GROSS: Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil, welcome to FRESH AIR. So bring it on back, so bring it on back. Baby, baby, baby, I beg you please, please, please, please. So don't, don't, don't, don't let it slip away. We had a love, a love, a love you don't find every day. If you would only love me like you used to do, yeah. THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS: (Singing) Baby, baby, I'd get down on my knees for you. They begin with this part of 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'.' We're going to listen back to Terry's 2000 interview with Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann. In 1999, Weil and Mann's song, 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin',' was the most performed song of the century in the BMI publishing catalog.

Unlike many songwriters of the '60s, Weil and Mann survived what was called the British Invasion. Songwriters like Carole King, Gerry Goffin, Ellie Greenwich and Neil Sedaka churned out material for the latest singers and pop groups. They worked in Manhattan in an office building near the Brill Building when the area was the new Tin Pan Alley. When Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann teamed up in the early 1960s, they were both staff writers for a music publishing company owned by Don Kirshner. MOSLEY: That was the Drifters, The Crystals, The Righteous Brothers, Dusty Springfield, the Animals and Dolly Parton. You waltz right in the door, just like you've done before, and wrap my heart 'round your little finger. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, 'HERE YOU COME AGAIN')ĭOLLY PARTON: (Singing) Here you come again, just when I've begun to get myself together. Girl, there's a better life for me and you. THE ANIMALS: (Singing) We got to get out of this place if it's the last thing we ever do. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, 'WE GOTTA GET OUT OF THIS PLACE') (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, 'JUST A LITTLE LOVIN'')ĭUSTY SPRINGFIELD: (Singing) Just a little loving early in the morning beats a cup of coffee for starting off the day. And there's no tenderness like before in your fingertips. THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS: (Singing) You never close your eyes anymore when I kiss your lips. (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, 'YOU'VE LOST THAT LOVIN' FEELIN'') But then he comes uptown each evening to my tenement, uptown where folks don't have to pay much rent. THE CRYSTALS: (Singing) He gets up each morning, and he goes downtown where everyone's his boss, and he's lost in an angry land. They say there's always magic in the air on Broadway.

THE DRIFTERS: (Singing) They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway, on Broadway. Weil and Mann songs were recorded by the Drifters and The Righteous Brothers and many others. Cynthia Weil, part of the songwriting team with her husband, Barry Mann, died last week at the age of 82.

So so done lyrics